Sandustry Artifacts Guide: Locator, Puzzles & Augments

Artifacts are underground exploration rewards that unlock Augments. You can discover some rooms while digging, but the dependable late-game search method is the Tier 5 Locator: unlock it for 3,000 Gold, fill it with Voidjuice, activate the scan, and follow the direction indicator toward a hidden Artifact.

There is no verified universal coordinate list for every world. Treat this as a finding-and-solving guide rather than a fixed map.

How to Find Artifacts

Artifacts are tied to ancient underground structures. You can encounter a room naturally while excavating, so investigate unusual indestructible borders, doors, and large empty shapes on the map. For a systematic search, wait until the Locator is available.

Step	What to do	What to look for
1	Reach Factory/Research Tier 5	The Locator appears in Research
2	Spend 3,000 Gold	The Locator becomes available as a tool
3	Fill it with Voidjuice	The tool has scan charge
4	Activate or hold the Locator underground	A dot/marker appears around its circular display
5	Dig in the indicated direction	Ancient room borders or an Artifact puzzle
6	Complete the room	The Artifact and Augment Forge become accessible

The official Research page describes the Locator as a tool that scans for hidden alien Artifacts when filled with Voidjuice. Current Early Access footage also shows each scan consuming some of the stored liquid, so bring enough charge for repeated checks while changing direction.

How to Read the Locator

Place the Locator on an accessible tool slot, activate it, and read the small direction marker on its ring. The marker gives a direction, not a complete path or exact distance. Dig toward it, then scan again after moving far enough to confirm that the direction has changed.

Do not assume that the shortest straight line is passable. A direct route may meet indestructible room walls, hard terrain, lava, or another obstacle that needs a different tool. Search around the outside of the structure for its intended entrance before deciding the Locator is wrong.

How Artifact Puzzles Work

Artifact rooms use different combinations of building, material physics, tools, buttons, portals, heat, ice, water, and lava. The official beginner guide warns that some ancient puzzles require a tool or resource that may not be available when you first discover the room.

Use this order before looking for a room-specific solution:

1. Read the room hint and inspect every button, cable, colored tile, door, and portal.
2. Check whether yellow tiles permit building. This is easy to miss in the current door-and-fluid puzzles.
3. Identify the intended material and where it must finish, not just where it first falls.
4. Test one change at a time and watch which cable, target, or door changes state.
5. If the required obstacle resists every current tool, leave the room and continue Research.

Example: Water and Three Targets

One current Early Access room drops Water when its button is pressed. The player builds on yellow cells to redirect that Water, avoids blue portal cells that remove or recycle it, and fills three targets. When all three connected indicators are green, the Artifact door opens.

This example teaches the visual language—yellow can mean buildable and green cables can show completed targets—but it is not a universal solution for every Artifact room.

Tool and Material Puzzles

Other observed rooms require timing movement around fire, igniting a target with a projectile, melting or freezing a route, or redirecting lava. Tool restrictions inside a room may be intentional. An old Demo update, for example, removed Rocket Launcher use from the first Artifact room and added clearer warnings for no-fire areas; do not use that historical note as a current room-by-room walkthrough.

What to Do After Collecting an Artifact

Interact with the room’s Augment Forge after the Artifact becomes available. Current footage shows the Forge offering upgrades such as additional movement speed, faster Phase Dash charging, sprint duration, and tool-related choices.

The official Steam beginner guide gives the broader rule: Artifacts provide Augments for the Gun, Rocket, Shovel, and the player, including movement and boost improvements. Choose from the options visible in your current Forge; the collected official sources do not publish a complete guaranteed reward order.

Why an Artifact Room Seems Broken

Problem	Check first	Practical response
Nothing can be placed	Colored floor cells and the room hint	Try building only on the yellow cells
A fluid no longer reaches the target	Portals, gaps, and the last placed block	Remove the last change and reroute from the source
The expected tool is disabled	No-fire/tool restriction indicators	Look for a material-physics or building solution
The entrance is behind hard terrain	Material Scanner and Research	Record the location and return with the required tool
The player is trapped	Pause menu	Use Unstuck
The room state cannot be restored	Save/reload, then current bug-report route	Do not keep adding structures to an unrecoverable state

Steam community reports describe a current lava/door room in which placing the wrong structure can consume the available lava with no obvious reset. That is a player-reported failure case, not an official mechanic, but it is a good reason to save before experimenting in a room with a limited material supply.

Are There Ten Artifacts?

A current Early Access playthrough shows the upgrade interface reporting 5 out of 10 Artifacts, then uses several of the remaining rooms. That is strong evidence for a ten-Artifact counter in that version and world, but it does not prove fixed coordinates, a fixed discovery order, or an identical reward sequence in every save.

Avoid old “first relic” and “second relic” Demo routes when playing the 2026 Early Access build. Research tiers, room restrictions, puzzle hints, and terrain generation can change during development.

Artifact Search Checklist

• Keep the Map and Minimap open while excavating around unusual structures.
• Carry enough Voidjuice for more than one Locator scan.
• Leave a navigable tunnel back to the factory instead of mining only in a straight line.
• Check yellow buildable cells before assuming a puzzle needs a weapon.
• Save before using limited Water or lava in a room.
• Return later when the Material Scanner identifies terrain your current tool cannot break.
• Use the live Augment Forge choices rather than planning around an old reward list.

Sources

• Beginner’s Guide — Sandustry Official Wiki
• Research — Sandustry Official Wiki
• Sandustry Beginner’s Guide — Hooded Horse on Steam
• Sandustry on Steam
• Current Early Access Artifact playthrough