Snow in Sandustry

Snow comes from the Cryoblaster or from digging Frostbed, and it is the game's main cold source. It freezes deep Water into Ice and turns Lava into Scoria, consuming itself in both cases - though shallow water or lava dropped onto snow just consumes the snow without producing anything. Burned, it becomes Steam, and Cryoblaster snow is called out on the wiki as one of the renewable ways to keep a factory in Water.

How to get Snow

You can reach Snow 2 different ways, which matters because the cheapest route early is rarely the one that scales. It comes out of Frostbed.

What Snow is used for

Downstream of Snow you have Water, Steam, Ice and Scoria. Deciding the split between them is a layout question as much as a recipe one.

Conversions

Snow has documented conversions but no stated yields, so test a small batch before sizing a permanent line around any of them.

• Ice: Shallow water yields nothing - the snow is just consumed.

Snow properties

At density 150, Snow sorts itself relative to everything else in the pile, which is often cheaper than filtering it deliberately.

Related machines and materials

The machines below are the ones that produce, consume or transform Snow; the material links point at the steps either side of it in the chain.

• Cryoblaster
• Snowmaker

Tips

• Cryoblaster-produced Snow is one of the renewable Water sources in the game.
• Dropping lava onto snow, or snowing shallow water, produces nothing - depth matters.

Version notes

The changes below are the reason a Snow layout copied from an older video may not work in the current version.

• Demo Hotfix 7 (2025-02-10): Snow vaporizes into Steam when burned.

The wiki infobox lists Water as Snow's byproduct; the Update notes and the wiki's own body text say burning Snow produces Steam. Both readings are kept rather than reconciled.