Start Here
Beginner Guide
Spend your first 10–15 hours in Voyage, learn the Trampler, and master one clean extraction. The dunes are unforgiving — this page keeps you alive long enough to get hooked.
Your First Voyage — Checklist
- Pick the Grumpy Walker preset. It is resource-light, easy to rebuild and well-balanced — the standard first Trampler recommended across guides. Don't over-invest: keep a single Trampler under ~40% of your total resources and keep at least two budget builds in reserve.
- Load your starter weapons. A revolver (mid-close) plus a rifle (range) cover most early fights. The Trampler's front 40mm cannon is for fast fire, the rear 80mm for heavy hits. Boxed guns can be opened and loaded with TAB — no need to disassemble first.
- Carry an empty green box everywhere. Green boxes are your portable loot containers. Pick items up into the box, then transfer to your main inventory. Loot only counts as extracted if it is placed on the ship's shelves (captain's / crew quarters) — put it anywhere else and it is lost.
- Store food in the fridge. Meat/beans in the fridge let you respawn; keep spare guns and armor in the cabin, load all cannon shells at once, mount the cannons, then start the engine (red lever, F).
- Dig "Suspicious Piles of Sand". A shovel on these random mounds yields surprise treasures — a cheap early source of valuables.
- Learn to extract before you chase loot. Head to the Evacuation Zone, power down, climb the radio tower and wait for the dropship. See the extraction guide for the full steps.
Controls & Combat Basics
- Movement: WASD to drive; Q/E for crab-walk strafing. Two speed gears; fuel rods give a speed boost.
- The reactor is the heart. Destroy the enemy reactor and their Trampler is dead; an enemy captain whose reactor is gone cannot respawn. Protect yours — bury it deep in the hull.
- Anti-infantry priority: shoot the legs first to slow a target, then take out the turret to remove its counter-fire; clear remaining sections after.
- Cannons: 80mm is heavy and slow, 40mm is the workhorse with no reload quirk, and the 70mm shotgun is best against people up close.
Trampler Build Priority (First Vehicle)
When editing your Trampler by compartment (bridge / engines / reactors / storage / spawn / weapon mounts / armor), a common safe order is:
| # | System | Why it comes first |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Engines | Mobility and hill-climbing — you cannot fight or flee without it. |
| 2 | Reactor | Powers everything; its destruction ends the run. |
| 3 | Storage | Prevents loot loss; doubles as armor around the reactor. |
| 4 | Spawn point | Respawn location for your crew. |
| 5 | Armor | Last — useless if the first four are missing. |
Verify in-game: this priority order is compiled from community guides. Confirm against the in-game builder and the official getting-started guide before committing a large build.
Common Beginner Mistakes
- Deploying an unarmed Trampler — cannons must be mounted after landing.
- Chasing every signal instead of finishing one objective.
- Hoarding beyond capacity and losing loot that wasn't shelved.
- Going solo with no plan — a 2–4 person crew splits roles (pilot / deck gunner / on-foot looter / rear guard) far more safely.
Redeem Codes — Current Status
There is no public redeem-code system in SAND. As of the Early Access launch, SAND does not use promo codes for in-game items. Any "SAND codes" you see advertised elsewhere are not official. The only legitimate free rewards come from Steam discounts and occasional Server Slam events. We will not list fabricated codes.
Next steps: once you can extract reliably, learn Trampler builds, the weapon tier list, and the tech tree unlock order.
Content note: SAND is in Early Access — build costs, node values and extraction timings change with patches. Stats reflect the EA launch window; re-check after major updates. Verify in-game before committing resources.