Grounded: Beginner's Guide & Best Tips

Yeah, Grounded will kick your ass at first. Here's what nobody tells you.

I've got about 400 hours in this game. I've built bases that look like they belong in an architecture magazine, and I've had bases completely wrecked by a single wolf spider that somehow glitched through three layers of stem walls. I've died to ants. I've died to falling off a grass blade. I've died because I forgot to drink water and just stood there, watching my health tick down while I fumbled for my canteen.

Grounded is special because it doesn't care about your feelings. You're tiny. Everything wants to eat you. And the game does a terrible job of explaining how to survive. But when you finally figure out how to parry a ladybug's charge, or you kite an infected wolf spider into a squad of ladybird larvae and they tear it apart while you laugh from a safe distance? There's nothing else like it.

This guide is for the player who's rage-quit twice already. The one who keeps getting murdered by mosquitoes and can't figure out why their base keeps getting raided. I'm going to tell you exactly what I wish someone had told me. Not the vague "explore and have fun" crap you get from casual forums. Hard numbers. Specific strategies. The stuff that actually fixes your problems.

Why Players Struggle — The Real Frustrations, Fixed

I've spent way too much time on the Grounded subreddit and Discord. These are the top complaints I see every single day, and here's the brutal truth about each one.

"I keep dying to everything and I have no armor or weapons."

You're not supposed to fight anything in the first hour. Seriously. This isn't a combat game at the start — it's a stealth sim. Your first goal is to avoid every single bug smaller than you and outrun everything larger. The red ant armor is your first real set, and you can craft it with parts from worker ants that you kill by standing on a rock and shooting them with a pebblet spear. They can't reach you. Do that until you have a full set. The set bonus lets ants ignore you, which is huge.

"I can't find enough food or water."

Everyone who complains about this missed the spork on the oak tree in the pond. It's a permanent water source. Climb the oak roots near the pond edge, go around back, and there's a spork that catches rainwater. Fill a canteen there and you'll never die of thirst again. For food, cook weevil meat on a roasting spit — it's the safest food source early because weevils don't fight back. Kill them with a bow from range.

"My base keeps getting destroyed at night."

Stop building on the ground. I cannot stress this enough. I built my first base on a flat patch of grass and woke up to a wolf spider inside it. Every time. Build on top of the giant oak tree roots, or on the flat rocks near the pond, or on the baseball. Bugs mostly don't pathfind up there. Also, don't build with grass planks — they break instantly. Rush stem walls as soon as you can chop down grass stalks with a level 2 axe.

"I have no idea where to go or what to do."

The game's quest log is terrible. It gives you vague tasks like "explore the hedge." Here's the actual path: Build the field station quickly by scanning three different things — scan a pebblet, a plant fiber, and a sprig. That gives you BURG.L, who gives you chip quests. Do the hedge chip first. Bring a bow, lots of arrows, and a dandelion tuft for the gliding sections. Follow the web-covered branches up. You'll know you're there when you see the giant lab dome. This unlocks the first major story area and gives you a tier 2 axe blueprint.

"Mosquitoes are the worst thing ever."

They're not as bad as you think. The trick is they always attack in a straight line. Stand still, block the first hit (perfect block if you can), then smack them twice. They die in 3 bone dagger hits if you've upgraded it once. Also, you can kite them into antlions in the sandbox — the antlions one-shot them. It's hilarious to watch.

Getting Started / First Steps — What I Wish I Knew Day 1

I'm going to assume you've just spawned and you're looking at a grass blade wondering what to punch. Here's your first hour checklist, but not the stupid kind.

• Punch exactly 5 grass blades, 3 clover leaves, and 2 pebblets. That gives you enough fiber and material to build a workbench, a pebblet spear, and a repair tool. Don't over-gather. More stuff attracts ants.
• Build your first base on the flat rock near the spawn point's juice box. It's safe from patrol bugs and has a light source at night. Three walls, a lean-to, and a chest. That's it. You'll move later.
• Craft a pebblet spear and a bow with 10 arrows. The spear is for throwing at weevils from range. The bow is for sniping mites on the oak tree. Both give you guaranteed safe food and armor materials.
• Eat the tutorial. Go to the laser machine, complete that raid. It gives you a boosted mutation slot that's permanent. I skipped it thinking it was a side quest and suffered for 10 hours.
• Scan everything you find. Seriously. Scan a piece of grass, a weed stem, a flower petal, a clover, a pebblet, a piece of sap. Each scan fills in your crafting menu and gives you science points. You need science to buy recipes from BURG.L.
• Learn the perfect block timing on an ant. Find a solitary worker ant, get in its face, and just block. The parry window is about 0.3 seconds before the hit lands. Practice until you get it. This skill carries you through the entire game.

Expert Tips & Tricks — The Stuff You Only Learn After 100 Hours

These aren't the tips you get from a wiki. These are the things I discovered through trial-by-fire, broken gear, and some very expensive deaths.

Why your weapon choice matters way more than you think

Weapon types in Grounded aren't just cosmetic. Every bug has a resistance and weakness to specific damage types. Here's the actual math:

• Slashing (swords, daggers): Good against grass enemies like ladybugs and weevils. Terrible against shell-types like ladybird larvae (they have 75% slash resistance).
• Busting (clubs, hammers): The best all-around. Does 40% more damage to shelled enemies, slightly less to fleshy ones. The red ant club (crafted from ant parts + sprig) can carry you through early game.
• Stabbing (spears, daggers): Great against flying enemies. A bone dagger deals 2.5x damage to mosquitoes because they're considered "flying." Use this for bee and mosquito fights.
• Chopping (axes): Worse than you think for combat. The cooldown is too long. Use it only for resource gathering.

The stamina management formula that changed my gameplay

Most players sprint everywhere and then die because they have no stamina to block. Here's the rule: Sprint only in 2-second bursts. Stamina regenerates fastest if you stand still for exactly 1.5 seconds after a sprint. Any longer and the regen slows down. Count in your head: "Sprint-two-three, stop-one-three, sprint again." I went from dying to ladybugs to killing them consistently with this one trick.

The hidden mutation that breaks the game

There's a mutation called "Trapper PEEP.R" that you get by scanning 15 different creatures with the peep.B. It gives you a 15% damage boost against any creature you've peeped. That's basically every bug in the game. Most people skip scanning because it seems slow. Don't. Scan everything you see. The damage boost is multiplicative with your weapon upgrades. At level 5 weapons, that 15% turns into closer to 22% effective damage because of how the math works.

The god-tier food you're ignoring

Don't eat roasted weevil meat forever. There's a food called "Bombardier Steak" made from bombardier beetle parts + cooked meat. It gives you 30% damage resistance for 5 minutes. That's better than most armor sets. Kill bombardiers by luring them into water—they can't shoot their gas underwater. Farm three of them, cook the steak, and suddenly the upper yard isn't terrifying anymore.

How to cheese the infected wolf spider (yes, it works)

This thing is the reason people quit. It's fast, hits like a truck, and has a ranged attack. Here's the cheese: Lead it to the hedge lab's laser doorway. The spider can't fit through the door fire. Shoot it from the other side with a crossbow. It takes about 60 arrows with a tier 2 crossbow. It takes patience, but it's guaranteed safety. I farm the infected wolf spider this way every time now to get the fungal growth materials for tier 3 weapons.

Common Mistakes to Avoid — What Got Me Killed Over and Over

I've made every single one of these mistakes. Let me save you from repeating them.

Mistake #1: Crafting everything you see

You don't need a full workbench upgrade immediately. You don't need every armor set. Crafting the acorn armor is a trap — it's heavy, slows your stamina regen by 20%, and the defense bonus isn't worth it for early game. Stick with red ant armor until you can make knight armor from the pond lab. Also, never craft multiple weapons of the same tier. One tier 2 weapon upgraded to level 5 is better than three tier 2 weapons at level 1.

Mistake #2: Ignoring the weather

Grounded has a day/night cycle that actually matters. At night, wolf spiders roam everywhere, not just their spawning zones. The haze zone releases toxic gas that dissipates during the day. If you're exploring the upper yard at night without a light source and full armor, you're going to get jumped by a wolf spider you can't see. Set up sleeping at day 18:00 in-game time (use the lean-to to rest) and only travel in the morning. You'll avoid 80% of random combat encounters.

Mistake #3: Hoarding materials in one chest

One day you'll walk back from a long resource run and find a sprig of dead weed stems outside your base. That was a wolf spider patrolling through. It ate through your walls. Your single chest with all your quartzite and marble shards is now destroyed. Spread resources across multiple chests in different locations. I keep one chest inside my base walls, one up on the oak roots, and one buried under the pond's surface (in a waterproof chest). If one gets wrecked, I don't lose everything.

Mistake #4: Fighting near the water

Diving bell spiders can shoot webs from underwater. I lost a full set of tier 3 armor once because I was fighting a wolf spider near the pond, accidentally got web-shot into the water, and then three diving bell spiders swarmed me. If you're near any water source, lure the bug away from the shore before engaging. The water is its own ecosystem with its own apex predators.

Mistake #5: Not using consumables

I used to hoard my smoothies and bandages like they were endgame items. They're not. Smoothies made from slime drops + plant slurry give you a 40 health instant heal with no cooldown. You can make 20 of them in 5 minutes. Pop them constantly. Bandages give you regen for 30 seconds. Use them the moment your health dips below 75%. The materials are everywhere. Don't die with full inventory space because you were saving things.

FAQ — The Questions I Get Asked Most

Q: How do I get to the shed area? It feels impossible.

You need tier 3 tools from the sandbox lab. Specifically, the termite axe (termite parts + hot charcoal) and the coaltana sword (from the grill area). The shed's entrance is through a crack in the wall near the broken glass. Bring a dandelion tuft, 20 bandages, and 10 cooked meals. The spiders there hit for 70 damage base even through tier 2 armor. Don't try it until you have full tier 3 gear, but once you do, the resources inside (milk molars, rare ores) are insane.

Q: What's the best base location in the game?

Controversial take: On top of the giant stump in the upper yard. You need to build stairs to get up, but no enemies pathfind up there except bees, and bees are manageable. It's central to the sandbox, the pond, and the shed. The downside is it's a long hike from water, so build a water collector early. But I've never been raided there in 6 playthroughs.

Q: Is the crossbow worth it over the normal bow?

Yes, but only after you upgrade it to level 4. Before that, the regular sprig bow fires faster and has better DPS against early-game enemies. The crossbow's main advantage is silent shooting — bugs don't aggro onto you from the sound of the shot at tier 2. That's huge for scouting and farming materials near sleeping bugs.

Q: How do I stop getting raided?

Raids trigger based on your base value (total number of structures) and how many bugs you've killed recently. The fix: Keep your base under 50 pieces of building. No spires, no massive towers. If you need more space, build a secondary base on the other side of the map. Also, never kill bugs near your base. If you have to kill something, drag it 100+ centimeters away first. The game flags the last location where you killed a bug as a raid trigger zone — not your base.

Q: What weapons should I prioritize for the final boss?

The shield from the pond lab. The crossbow from the hedge lab. The coaltana from the grill. Final boss has no resistances to slashing but hits with fire phase and electric phase. Bring a full set of Roly Poly armor (tier 3 with 80% stun resistance) and 20 cooked meals. The fight is a marathon, not a sprint — the boss has 12 distinct phases with different patterns. My first kill took 14 minutes.

Look, Grounded is a game that expects you to fail. It's designed that way. Every death teaches you something — where a bug spawns, how a mechanic works, what you shouldn't have eaten. But the game doesn't give you the manual. This guide is that manual. Now go punch a grass blade and get started. You've got labs to explore, bugs to murder, and a very unlucky kid to save.