In Grounded there are a great deal of crafting stations and utilities that players can use in order to advance their survival tactics. In the past I’ve covered stations like the Jerky Rack, Spinning Wheel, Oven and Smoothie Station, but as a builder one of the stations I use the most often is the Grinder.
Admittedly, the Grinder isn’t the most important station to have, however, if you’re someone who is doing a lot of building it might be a main focus for you.
Realistically there are only two items players can create using the Grinder, making it one of the least rewarding stations to rush to obtain and to be quite frank I’m quite salty that players have both the option to unlock it through Analyzing and by purchasing a BURG.L Chip upgrade due to the minimal utility that it receives.
The following guide will take you through everything you need to know about the Grinder, albeit it is not much in comparison to other stations in the game.
Note: If you want to watch me play games like Grounded on Twitch head on over here! I’m always happy to answer your questions there as well!
HOW TO UNLOCK THE GRINDER
As mentioned, there are two ways a player can unlock the Grinder. Either players can purchase the Advanced Production Buildings from BURG.L, which is advisable as it provides the Oven as well which cannot be unlocked any other way, or players can Analyze a Flower Petal.
In my opinion, there is no reason to rush an unlock for the Grinder as it is pretty useless without an Oven, unless players want to make an Aphid or Weevil Farm, but at the end of the day players are going to have to unlock the BURG.L chip in order to advance.
It is quite unfortunate that the majority of the objects unlocked with the Advanced Production Buildings can be unlocked using research and really making a player feel like the 2,500 Raw Science cost is too much to ask for, but what can you do and at least Raw Science is a renewable resource.
HOW TO CRAFT THE GRINDER
Grinders take a good portion of resources to craft and due to it’s low utility, I would strongly recommend only having between 2-4 Grinders in your base. Players may want to increase the amount of Grinders they have if they are primarily focusing on building, though I will teach you a great strategy shortly to make sure you get the most out of the Grinder in a short amount of time.
The ingredients required to craft the Grinder are as follows:
2 Crow Feather Pieces
2 Acorn Shells
3 Flower Petals
5 Bombardier Parts
Out of all these ingredients, the Crow Feather Pieces and the Bombardier Parts will be the most difficult and annoying to farm as Crow Feathers get placed randomly around the world and Bombardier Parts tend to be more useful for Jerky Racks rather than Grinders.
In both cases I would strongly recommend that players do a scan for the resources in order to not waste time. This is especially true for Crow Feathers which will not move around the map after they are dropped by the Crow.
Creatures can be harder to locate with the survey as they will move from their location, though the indicator will not move. I can’t tell you the amount of times that I have tried to chase bugs using the survey and have been unsuccessful, but the husband is much better at it than me.
HOW DOES THE GRINDER WORK?
Similar to the Spinning Wheel players can place a total of 4 items in the Grinder at a time, though players will only be able to place the following items:
Mushrooms
Mushroom Chunks
Toadstool Chunks
Plant Fiber
Any form of Mushroom will provide players with Mushroom Slurry, while any Plant Fiber placed in the Grinder will provide Plant Slurry.
Players must ensure that they either purchase Advanced Production Buildings or have analyzed Plant Fiber or the variations of Mushrooms before they attempt this as these resources cannot be produced without them.
Similar to the Jerky Rack, players will be able to mishmash what resources they place in the Grinder, so they will not need to make one type of resource at a time.
There is no negative side to placing multiple types of ingredients into the Grinder.
HOW FAST ARE GRINDERS?
Grinders will only take about 2 minutes to finish creating Slurry. Similar to all other stations, players can sleep while the Grinders are running so they can immediately obtain their rewards upon waking up.
WHAT IS SLURRY USED FOR?
As mentioned, there are two different types of Slurry that players can obtain, being Mushroom Slurry and Plant Slurry.
Mushroom Slurry can be used to tame Weevils and Plant Slurry can tame Aphids. Players will have to drop the related Slurry near the creature they would like to tame, however, they will need to ensure that they do not scare the bugger as doing so will make the creature refuse to eat. In some cases, a creature will calm down and will begin eating, however, this is not always possible.
Plant Slurry can only be made one at a time, though players will luckily be able to maximize their Mushroom Slurry output.
Now, Mushroom Slurry can also be used for Mushroom Bricks. Players will need a Whopping 5 Mushroom Slurry to make 2 Mushroom Bricks and will have to place the Mushroom Slurry into the Oven to do so.
Due to the correlation between Ovens and Grinders, I would strongly recommend placing them near each other and having at least 3 Ovens in your base so you can quickly make Mushroom Bricks.
HOW DO I GET MUSHROOM SLURRY QUICKLY?
One of the most important stations to have near a Grinder is going to be a Garden Patch. We personally have 10 Garden Patches, using two for standard Mushrooms just to have on hand and 8 for growing Mushrooms that will be turned into Slurry.
Being that there are 3 different types of Mushrooms, each yields a different amount of Mushroom Slurry, being the following:
Mushrooms provide 2 Mushroom Slurry
1 Mushroom Chunk provides 6 Mushroom Slurry
1 Toadstool Chunk provides 10 Mushroom Slurry
Due to the massive increase in Mushroom Slurry players can receive from Toadstool Chunks, it’s a good idea to only use these while planting Mushrooms.
Unfortunately, players will have to wait 72 in-game hours (2.4 real life hours if you don’t sleep) in order to obtain a yield of Toadstool Chunks, however, players can fertilize their Garden Patches in order to reduce the amount of time that it takes.
I’ll be honest, for me, it was simply better to have a good amount of Garden Patches and just shove things into the Oven when they were ready as the Oven will also take time to produce the Mushroom Bricks.
When it comes to producing Mushroom Bricks you’re going to want the most Garden Patches, a couple less Ovens and you will not need many Grinders. As I said, we use a maximum of 2-3, but players have reported needing a maximum of 5, due to how quick they are.
CONCLUSION
As I stated, Grinders for me were pretty underwhelming and I truly with that there was more utility for them.
Although I use Slurry very regularly, it still feels like there’s nothing to really do with them.
I am hoping that there are some more utility options that will be available to us in the future of Grounded, but I truly have no ideas based on what resources are currently in the game.
But please let me know how you feel about the Grinder. Are you in a similar Boat as me?
Let me know in the comments below!
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