40d:Sand

Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of small bits of rock and minerals. There are five different colors of sand – tan, yellow, white, black, and red – but their only difference is their appearance on the ground, as there is no difference between them for purposes of glassmaking. Sand typically appears in deserts and along ocean beaches, but is occasionally found in other biomes as well.

Sandy clay, sandy clay loam, sandy loam, and loamy sand are not considered sand by the game and thus cannot be used for glassmaking.

Due to a bug, stone floors where a tower-cap or shrub grows will turn into a random soil type, which will sometimes be sand.^[Verify]

Sand in fortress mode

Sand is used in the production of glass items at a glass furnace. To collect sand, first locate some appropriate sandy tiles. They will appear as "[Color] Sandy [Tile]"^[Verify] when inspected with the look tool. Next, set an activity zone over the sandy tiles by pressing i and then designating the sandy tiles as an activity zone. Once you've done this, activate sand collection by pressing s; however, this will not yet result in any sand being collected. You must build a glass furnace and activate the collect sand task. Each Dwarf collecting sand will require a bag, and only one dwarf will collect sand per furnace^[Verify]. Sand collection is considered part of the "Item Hauling" labor.

Filled bags of sand are considered furniture and require the "Furniture Hauling" labor to move. Sand bags are stored in furniture stockpiles. Collected sand is listed under powder on the stocks menu.

To get bags to fill with sand for your fortress, create a leather bag at a leather works or a cloth bag at a clothier's shop, or buy the bags from a caravan. To have sand bags stored near your glass furnace, create a furniture stockpile with only "sand bags" enabled (this is selected via the u key in the furniture/siege ammo submenu of the stockpile settings menu). It may be useful to construct several glass furnaces (non-magma is easier) and have several "collect sand" jobs queued on them at the same time, so that you have enough filled sand bags on hand to keep your glassmaker(s) supplied.

Farming

As all sand types are soils, farm plots can be built on them without need for irrigation.

Strange Moods

A immigrant glass maker will occasionally request glass on a sand-less map. Normally you wont have anyone with the glass-making skill but immigrants do come with it sometimes. The best way to deal with this is to train them higher in an other applicable skill to avoid moody glass makers or you´ll just let the dwarf die. Cheating would help either situation. Add [SOIL_SAND] to any soil you do have, in the object raw's.