Slag — Officially Called Residue Now

Quick answer: the material you know as "slag" is officially called Residue in the current game. It comes off your Shakers, burns into Burnt Residue at roughly 4:1, and presses into guaranteed Gold — here is the whole pipeline, plus the rename history.

Material Data (Current)

Field	Residue	Burnt Residue
Matter type / Density	Slushy / 50	Solid / 50
Obtained from	Wet Sand (on a Shaker)	Residue (burned)
Processed by	Fire	Kinetic Press
Byproducts	Burnt Residue	Gold, Seed
Burnable / Wettable / Launchable	Yes / No / Yes	No / No / Yes

Where Residue Comes From

"Residue is produced by dropping Wet Sand on a Shaker." Every Wet Sand pixel becomes Residue; the Shaker's Gold output (25% chance) is the side prize — Residue is the guaranteed product, and it is not waste.

Burning: 25% Per Pixel, ~4:1 Overall

The conversion is lossy by design: "When Residue combines with Fire each pixel has a chance to either turn into Burnt Residue or be consumed with no output." The odds: "A Residue only has a 25% chance of turning into Burnt Residue" — which the wiki also states as "approximately 4 Residue → 1 Burnt Residue."

Ignition options: the Flamethrower or the Rocket Launcher's napalm upgrade manually; a Pyro Dispenser or lava trapped in Filters for automation. Helpfully, "with enough Residue input, a pile ignited by the player can burn continuously to keep producing Burnt Residue without having to keep reigniting."

Pressing: The Guaranteed Payoff

Burnt Residue is Kinetic Press food: "By dropping Burnt Residue onto a Kinetic Press from 25+ blocks high, the Burnt Residue will be transformed into 1 Gold and 1 Seed." No randomness — "1 Burnt Residue will always output 1 Gold and 1 Seed."

Watch the drop height: pixels arriving from under 25 blocks just rest on the press and block it. The official fix is a row of angled Launchers along the top to fling stagnant pixels aside.

The Name History: Slag → Residue

In the 2025 demo era the chain was named Slag / Burnt Slag / Kinetic Slag Press, and the 2025 wiki described Shaker output as "Gold (↓) and Slag" with a 20–25% gold range. Old guides and forum posts still use those names.

The current game and wiki renamed everything: Residue / Burnt Residue / Kinetic Press, with the gold odds now stated as an exact 25%. The press byproduct changed too — 2025's Gold + Spore became today's Gold + Seed. Same chain, new vocabulary.

Slag and Residue FAQ

Are Slag and Residue the same material in Sandustry?

Residue is the current official name. Slag is the demo-era name still used by older guides and player searches.

How do you get Residue?

Drop Wet Sand onto a Shaker. Every consumed Wet Sand pixel produces one Residue, while Gold is the additional chance-based output.

What is the Residue to Burnt Residue ratio?

Each Residue pixel has a 25% chance to become Burnt Residue when combined with Fire, so the official page describes the average as approximately 4 to 1.

What does one Burnt Residue produce?

After falling at least 25 blocks onto a Kinetic Press, one Burnt Residue always produces one Gold and one Seed.

Budget for the burn loss

Plan quantities backwards: every Burnt Residue you want costs about 4 Residue, which costs about 4 Wet Sand. If your press tower runs dry, the bottleneck is almost always the burning stage — not the Shakers.

Next Steps

Slag Burner Setups

Automate the burning stage two ways.

Kinetic Press Guide

The 25-block drop, in detail.

Need Help?

New to the gold chain? Gold Production