Engineers in SteamWorld Build love their Moonshine! It is their first true need, aside from the needs taken from their Worker days.
Moonshine also introduces a new concept to the gameplay of SteamWorld Build: a multi-tier production chain. This means that you will need more buildings to reach the final product, which includes turning products into something else before they can be used by the final production building.
For Moonshine, 4 buildings are required to complete the production chain:
- Sand Sifting Factory
- Glassblower
- Cactus Farm
- Moonshiner
This is the first time you'll need Sand for anything, so this production chain unlocks the Sand Sifting Factory.
How to get Sand
Sand is produced in the Sand Sifting Factory. To build one, find it in the Engineers build section and you will need the following:
- Reach Milestone 5 (have at least 1 Engineer)
- Have 6 Boards
- Have 1200 Money
- Fertility (which basically means Open space)
The Sand Sifting Factory needs Sand Fertility. Most of the times, this will just mean having some open space around it.
The Sand Sifting Factory requires 10 Engineers to operate and costs 8 money in upkeep.
It will produce 1 Sand every 15 seconds.
What Sand is used for
As said before, Sand is the basic product needed for Moonshine. The Sand is melted by the Glassblower to produce Glassware. This Glassware is then filled with Cactus Water to make Moonshine.
At full capacity (10 Engineers) with 100% fertility, each 15 seconds a batch of Sand is produced.
The Glassblower produces a piece of Glassware every 30 seconds. It requires only 1 Sand to produce a piece of Glassware.
That means that a single Sand Sifting Factory can supply 2 Glassblowers with enough Sand to reach full productivity.
In short
So there you have it! There's nothing else to it.
To get Sand in SteamWorld Build, you will need to build a Sand Sifting Factory. The Sand Sifting factory will unlock pretty early in the game, so you'll find it under the Moonshine production chain in the Engineer section.