Grounded: Tips & Tricks for Early Access

In our tips guide to Grounded we show you:

• What you should pay attention to at the beginning
• How to effectively quench your hunger and thirst
• How to defend yourself against enemy attacks

Grounded, developed by Obsidian Entertainment, is a multiplayer survival game in which you fight for survival, shrunk to the size of an insect. Your arch-enemies include ants and spiders that want to destroy your construction of a protective base. Go in search of food and unlock crafting materials that will help you protect yourself.

It's up to you whether you follow the story of Grounded or jump straight into the adventure. What you should keep in mind, how you can permanently quench your hunger and thirst, and how you can defend yourself most effectively against aggressive insects - we'll get to the bottom of these questions in our tips guide.

Tips & Tricks for starting in Grounded

As soon as you wake up and realize you're a miniature of yourself, head out through the harsh wilderness and collect any resources you find. It doesn't matter if it's stone, grass or clay. When the station is reached, analyze each of them to get new blueprints.

Three items at a time can be analyzed. After that, the station takes a while to be operational again. In that time, you can finish off insects that also hold helpful recipes after analysis. However, leave insects that show no interest in you alone for the time being.

Also, avoid aggressive insects like spiders or ants. Ants in particular like to travel in groups and have their queen in tow, against whom you have no chance alone. If a fight is unavoidable, make sure you have a spear with you. Also, make an axe to mine and collect resources.

If you want to make a glider, hit Dandelion with an axe until it topples over and equip the pollen from the Dandelion's head. Now jump from a rise and glide gently down to the ground. It is an efficient method to escape from enemies in higher places.

How to satisfy hunger and thirst?

In the lower right part of your screen are the hunger, thirst, stamina and life indicators. Always keep an eye on them, so that a lack of stamina, for example, doesn't ruin your escape attempt. You lose stamina with every action you perform. To satisfy your hunger, mushrooms are the safest source of food from the very beginning. They are available on every corner and have no negative side effect.

Once you set up a campfire, flies will be part of your daily diet. They are easy to kill and give meat, but you must not eat it uncooked . Otherwise, this will lead to poisoning, which will drain your life. After roasting on the campfire, it is edible without hesitation.

Flies are also a food item in Grounded.

Water on the ground is contaminated and will poison you as well. Drink only the water that you find in drops on blades of grass you will receive. Also, keep an eye out for nectar, which will replenish both the hunger and thirst gauges. Remember the location of the nectar. Most of the time it will reappear in the same place.

To establish a steady source of water at your base, build a Dew Collector. It regularly collects dew water from a spider web that can be drunk. You can get the blueprint for the Dew Collector by analyzing Quartzite or Spider Silk.

Where can I find the resources for the Dew Collector?

The construction requires fibers, wood, quartzites and spider silk. Fibers are the easiest resource to obtain. Wood, on the other hand, has a rarer occurrence. You will find some of it at the Mysterious Machine in the beginning. You can mine quartzite with a hammer in the cave where you cleared the cable for the Mysterious Machine's laser from nibbling insects.

A cable will lead you to the cave where you will find quartzite.

Several hammer blows on the large quartzite will create small chunks, which you collect. Be careful when collecting the spider silk. Approach a spider web and be careful that the associated spider doesn't spot you. Spear strikes on the web will automatically collect the spider silk.

How do I defend myself against enemies?

Build a workbench to make equipment as quickly as possible. With the armor you can already withstand much more and are more protected from attacks. At the bottom left of your life meter you will also see the durability of the equipment. The durability decreases with attacks from enemies.

Protect yourself from being eaten with equipment and weapons.

You can also craft components for a base at the workbench. With it you'll additionally protect yourself from enemy attacks and build a place to sleep to take care of your regeneration. You can also build a fireplace, which will not only prepare food, but will also provide light at night.

What should I consider when building my base?

Build your base in a place where there is little traffic. Ants will love to destroy your base built with sweat. There are instructions for building traps in front of your base. However, they prove to be of little use and do not prevent enemy insects from attacking.

Traps inflict a lot of damage not only to your enemies, but also to you.

Therefore, save your resources and use wooden walls. They can withstand much more and are more effective in terms of defense. At the beginning it is difficult to obtain wood. Keep an eye out for high amounts of wood when exploring and remember the spot on the map to find it again.

How do I defeat spiders?

Spiders are the biggest and most difficult enemies. They have a lot of health points and will kill you in no time if you are not wearing any equipment. Defeating them in close combat is almost impossible. Therefore, get a bow and arrow before attacking the tormentors and keep your distance until then. Thanks to their size, spiders can often be seen from far away.

To successfully kill a spider, you should attack it with a bow from a higher place . Currently, spiders are not able to climb up stones or other objects. However, spiders have ranged attacks. They will shoot a web at you that will cause damage. However, the projectile moves slowly, so you can easily dodge it.

Spiders can be defeated very effectively from elevations.

On the other hand, if you are surprised by a spider and don't find an elevation immediately, interrupt its attacks with thrown stones or spears. Shortly after executed attacks, the spider will stand motionless for a short time and prepare the next attack.

Use the time to attack them with melee or ranged attacks. Always move around them to prevent further assaults. You can also use the time between attacks to escape.

How do I get the bow and arrow?

Kill a mosquito and collect four "Gnat Fuzz" dropped by it to unlock the blueprint for the "Sprig Bow". Then analyze "Plant Fiber" to get the blueprint "Wovon Fiber". You will need two of them to build the bow.

You can find the thistle mainly in the southern part of the map.

The missing three "Sprig" grow everywhere and are collected without tools. For the arrows you need two Mite Fuzz and five Thistle Needle. Mite Fuzz you get from the red insects that nibble on the cable of the laser. To collect the five needles, you will need an axe and a Thistle Plant. You will find the plants mainly in the south.

Grounded: Where can I find maggots and maggot skin?

Maggots appear in many places on the map. A small hotspot exists next to the entrance to the Oak Lab. To find it, keep to the right as you exit the lab and walk along the ground near the oak tree trunk. The maggots are under the ground and stir up the earth as they move.

Use an oak shovel to dig up the maggots and then kill them with a weapon. Three stabs with the spear are enough here, since the larvae have only a few life points. You can get the maggot skin occasionally from scavenging dead maggots.

Where can I find clay?

You will also need the oak shovel to mine clay. Clay is found in waterholes all over the map. The color of the deposit is reddish and the appearance is reminiscent of the larger stones you mine with a hammer.

How do I unlock all the mutations?

The mutations that have recently appeared in Grounded bring useful effects, of which you can activate a maximum of three at a time. You'll need to perform various actions to unlock the mutations. There are those that have only one level and those that can reach three levels. How to unlock all mutations, what effects they grant and how to increase the level, you can see in the table:

There are other mutations, not all of which are known yet.

Where can I find Pure Science?

There are currently 17 locations where you can find Pure Science. You can earn more points by analyzing new items. You can recognize Pure Science by the conspicuous pink orbs floating above the ground. In the following overview, we will go into detail about all the locations.

As you progress, more locations will be added where you can find Pure Science.

• 1: When you enter the Oak Lab, you can choose two paths. One path leads to B.U.R.G.L. and the other path leads to Pure Science. Follow the path to the end to find the pink orb.
• 2: Go to the server room of the Oak Lab, near B.U.R.G.L.
• 3: Below the oak tree where the oak lab is located, there is Pure Science to be found along with some spiders.
• 4: Use the branch to the garden lamp you see on the south side of the oak tree and collect the Orb.
• 5: You will find the seventh Pure Science Orb on a piece of wood by the northern pond. Use the surrounding plants to reach the wood. A glider can help to avoid accidentally falling off in front of the spiders.
• 6: Near the ant hill you'll find to the left of the northern laser, there's a large rock hiding Pure Science behind it.
• 7 & 8: Enter the ant hill and follow the path. In front of a water hole you will find the pink Orb. Continue along the path until you reach a room with reddish bushes. Here you will find the second Pure Science finding spot in the Ant Hill.
• 9: In the southwest of the map, a rake leans against a stone. Look for a small gap on the stone and jump in. During the fall, pick up the Orb.
• 10: Follow the cable from the laser to enter a cave. At the end you will find Pure Science.
• 11: The pink Orb in the south of the map is on the branches of the giant tree.
• 12: Behind the watering hole, on the far right of the map, you will find Pure Science on a rock, just below a spider web.
• 13: South of the oak tree is a cave with two acorns blocking the entrance. Take a hammer to destroy the acorns and follow the path into the cave until you find 500 Pure Science. Right next to it is another research station.
• 14 & 15: In the northern pond on the right edge, you will find a stone sculpture containing a research lab. Both in the lab and in the stone tile above the lab you will find 100 Pure Science twice.
• 16: At the bottom right edge of the map you will find a Fizzam can. Above it is a destroyed research station guarded by Tatzy, a mini-robot. In the station you can get 500 Pure Science. Destroying Tatzy will give you another 100 Knowledge points.
• 17: In the flowerpot at the bottom of the northern pond, a spider guards a pink orb. Kill it or wait until it sleeps and sneak to the knowledge points.

Where can I find all the BURG.L chips?

There are currently three BURG.L chips in the game. Once you have found a chip, take it to BURG.L. He will scan it and then unlock things for you to buy for Pure Science. These chips exist and that unlocks them:

Each chip expands BURG.L's barter store.

How do I get an ant egg in Grounded?

Ant eggs are a useful resource in Grounded that are required to build a bomb . To get some, you'll have to go deep into the anthill. On your way, quite a few ants will attack you. Prepare for your journey with spears, bows and equipment.

Also, take bandages and supplies to avoid starving or dying on the way. The anthill is located north of the analysis tent. Immediately after entering the anthill, stay to the right until you find the first room and look for the brooders.

If the ant workers have been active, you will find several ant eggs right in the first room.

If there are no eggs in it, you will have to go in search of worker ants . They produce the eggs. If you find only a few workers in the nest, they are looking for food or are stuck somewhere in the world.

Then go outside the nest in search of them, killing as many workers as you can along the way. They will revive in the nest at 01:30 and then start producing eggs again. If eggs still do not form, you will need to kill more ants to reduce the overpopulation.

Other helpful tips

• Probably the easiest way to protect yourself permanently is to play in multiplayer. Grounded is a multiplayer survival game for a reason. Play it in a group together with your friends and support each other in the daily fight for survival. Travel together or split up to collect different resources.

Together you are strong.

• Grounded is available on PC on Steam, as well as for Xbox One (). The co-op mode is playable across all platforms. However, you will still need an Xbox Live account to play on the PC. The same mechanics have already been used in games like Minecraft.
• Explore your surroundings intensively, especially near spider webs. Besides ants, spiders are your biggest enemies and cause a lot of damage. Avoid them if there is an alternative way to get to your destination. Memorize which insects are aggressive and dangerous and which are not dangerous and avoid you.

• Observe your opponent in battle. Often your enemies have a certain pattern of behavior when they move into attack. If an attack is foreseeable, dodge or block it and then take the chance to land a hit. This way, you'll usually come out of a fight completely unscathed.
• Orientate yourself with the help of the map. Important points are already marked on it and can be used as a reference point to see exactly where you are. In normal game mode, you can also see how far you are from them. In combination with the map, you can find places where you have already found a lot of nectar, for example.
• If you make all three pieces of the ant armor , you will receive the Ant-Man set bonus. The effect makes all the ants ignore you. So you can explore their nest undisturbed, without having to fight against the masses of ants. Make sure that the armor value is not good. Ladybugs will kill you with two hits as long as you wear the ant armor.

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