Last time, I mentioned getting side tracked in Grounded. Now I’ve dropped several hours growing my Grounded base. Plenty of time spent gathering resources, designing and then building my new base. I still have yet to find the black ant hill. It also did not help that my base was attacked by angry ants and later spiders, twice.
Ant Revenge Attack on My Base
My failed early attempts to infiltrate the red ant hill pissed them off. While I was prepping and planning a trip the black ant hill, red ants initiated a revenge attack on my base. The red soldier ants that showed up broke down some of my grass walls.
I fought each of them off, but there was plenty of damage for me to repair. It was obviously the time to start building all the defensive structures I unlocked. Guess the game gave me a breather for a bit, but now it’s war.
So after my grand plans of making the trek to the black ant hill, sidetrack time. What followed was hours of resource gathering, planning and building.
Setting up my Grounded Base Defenses
My first step to properly defend my base was to build proper Palisades. In true Grounded form, those are made up of Grass Rope and Weed Stems. There’s plenty of Grass Fiber scattered for rope crafting. Very time consuming to gather those.
Lucky for me, I already upgraded to a tier 2 axe by this point. I could quickly cut through grass stalks and then the stems. Those cut into many Plant Fibers. I made sure to store the Grass Planks on the pallet I crafted for later construction needs.
The most time consuming part of my fence build was gathering all the Weed Stems. I purposely built my base near the center of the map, not far from the first field station the game introduced. There’s a decent amount of weeds in the area, but spread out.
Between the distance separating them and carry limit, I did a ton of running around. That’s when I finally had a big brain moment and used the relocate button on my Weed Stem Pallet. I could move the entire thing near the weeds I cut.
I could load up the pallet, then relocate it to the next one. Once I figured that out, I built the Palisades much faster. That perimeter fence ended up too small for what I wanted to do. Good news though is expansion was as easy as building an extension fence on both sides, then relocate each piece of that side of the fence back one.
My Grounded Base Grass House Version 2
With my beautiful Palisade fence in place, the Grounded base loop sucked me into building a cozier home. I wanted to move my grass house and expand the original size. My previous labors left me with ton’s of Grass Planks, plus my existing house I could recycle.
That’s when I went a little crazy for a few hours. Laid outmy Grass Floor, started putting the walls up and realized I needed more space. Instead of expanding my fence again and move things again, I decided to expand up.
I build stairs, then worked on a second level, followed by a third level. Topped it all of a Clover Roof. Grass Stairs worked to get up and down, but I wanted something more compact. Instead of just ladders, I built spiral staircases.
Decorating my New Grass House
As I demolished my old house and built up my new one, I moved my existing equipment and furniture. With 3 floors, I spent another hour deciding where to put things. First floor I reserved as my living room and kitchen area. Level 2 is the bedroom with my displays of armor and weapons. Level 3 is the workshop and storage.
Back then, I still only had the Lean To to sleep in and spent like an hour chasing a proper bed. I knew I needed Crow Feathers, but I had terrible luck with the drop rate. Fast forward to now and I find them often. It was nice after all that time to finally build a proper bed.
It was at that point I decided I also wanted to build the Fireplace I unlocked. That was a whole other process of fetching stones and clay. It’s massive, so it was fun trying to find a good place for it on the first floor.
Once that was sorted, then it was finding the right combination of chimney sections. It required different sizes to get the roof joint piece to line up right with my roof. It was very satisfying to put the smoke stack on top and then light it up the first time.
Next, I decided I wanted a balcony all the way around my second floor and even put a Clover fence around it. Yeah I went down the rabbit hole. I did also mess with some furniture pieces to up my cozy score (higher scores unlock more house piece recipes).
After adding some extra furniture, I decided to finally move on. Adding more furniture could up my cozy score to unlock more furniture and start a vicious cycle.
Angering Spiders on my Quest for a Zipline Network
While fetching resources for my Grounded base build, I decided I wanted a zipline network. It was easy enough for me to build a tower with ladders to get to each level. I also lucked out to have gathered enough resources to build a pair of ziplines.
I decided my first set of round trip ziplines would go to the Oak Lab. It’s the main hub for the quests. The proximity to acorns, tree sap and the Pond Lab also helped me decide. It took a bit to find the right tree roots to place the end points.
It was important to find an unobstructed path and the right height. I definitely messed that up my first time out. The height difference between my high and low point was too small, so it took forever to make the trip on the zipline.
Farming Web Fibers
Before I was even able to complete my first zipline, I was forced to go fetch Web Fiber from spiders. There were Orb Weavers near my base, but they took too long to kill and did not drop enough to be worth it. I found the perfect replacement near the Hedge Lab.
The web sacs on some of the tree branches contained plenty of fibers and some spiderlings who also dropped fibers. As a bonus, the sacs often contained other valuable larger bug parts. On the frisbee stuck in the tree, there was quite a few sacs and spiderlings.
It was the perfect farming location for those precious fibers. I fetched so many in one trip that I actually built an extra Spinning Wheel to process them into Silk Rope faster. This success prompted me to setup my second set of ziplines to go to the hedge tree to ensure easy access to more.
The Spider’s Revenge on my Grounded Base
Although I was very happy with my progress, Orb Weaver spiders attacked my base in revenge, twice. Nothing more intimidating than they large black and yellow spiders piercing their way through my palisade fencing.
During both attacks, I had to hurry to craft more arrows to attack them at a distance. After both attacks they damaged several sections of my palisades. Side tracked from my already side tracked side mission. It was satisfying to devise ways to prepare for future attacks.
I think it’s time to get serious about putting in turrets for proper defense. For now, I added Spike Strips in areas around my fence prone to attack. Next time anything attacks those sections, they will take damage at the same time.
Almost Back on Track with the Main Story
Funny to think how many hours ago I planned to finally find the Black Ant Hill. Now that my defenses are in place and zipline network near completion, it’s time to prep for another journey. This game is crazy easy to end up side tracked, but for fun things.
There are times when resource gathering is a bit tedious and night comes too soon, but overall it’s a satisfying game loop. Now I just hope I don’t manage to piss off any flying creatures enough to attack my base.
Fingers crossed my next Grounded post will involve entering the next lab, finally.