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Grounded Update 0.2.0 is giving players the bird... in the form of monstrous crows

What's it like to be a garden pest perfectly sized for a beak to snatch out of the dirt? We're about to find out when birds come to Grounded in its next update.

TJ Denzer

August 26, 2020 11:11 AM

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Obsidian Entertainment’s Grounded has been a fantastic experience from the studio that normally focuses solely on RPGs. Exploring a yard of pests as a minuscule micro human has allowed us to get creative with building grass forts and rock spears, traversing puddles that are like giant ponds and lakes to us, and learning an all-new fear of spiders. However, as Grounded trickles along through early access, a new threat is coming from the skies. You might not want to be caught out in the open when crows show up in Grounded Update 0.2.0.

Grounded announced its latest avian update with a thank you to players on the game’s Twitter on August 26, 2020, and in patch notes on August 25. Coming in Grounded’s Update 0.2.0, a new crow is set to visit the yard and involve itself in ongoing matters. You’d do best to be careful around the supermassive creature, but if you dare to brave the danger, you could also get your hands on feathers and other materials for crafting. Check out a sneakpeek of Grounded’s new crow denizen in the Thank You trailer below.

Grounded Update 0.2.0 patch notes

Below is a list of all changes, additions, fixes, and balance coming in the latest update to Grounded, including Mr. (or perhaps Ms.) Crow.

New Features

• Bird! - Includes new crafting materials and recipes from bird feathers.
• Perk system with 13 unique perks to discover!
• New BURG.L Quest types: Artificer (crafting quests) and Chipsleuth (quests asking you to locate BURG.L chips).
• Added Fence buildings (Sprig and Acorn).
• Added Table buildings (Grass and Clover).
• Added Water Flea ambient insect to flooded biome.

Changes / Tuning

Combat

• Buffed damage on the Spider Fang Dagger so it's on the higher end of tier 2 weapons.
• Buffed damage on Spike Traps significantly.
• Spiders learned a new set of attacks to choose from instead of just their basic bite.
• Added a brief forced delay between block start events, preventing the player from perfect-blocking by mashing the block button.
• Slightly reduced the bonus damage given by the Eyepatch.
• Adjusting larva blade poison proc so it's consistent.
• Reducing the stun ratings of two-handed weapons.
• Slightly reducing amount of damage the mint mallet deals so it's in line with tier progression.
• Tier 2 insects now have a cooldown after being stunned before they can be stunned again.
• Perfect Blocking no longer reduces armor durability.

Interface

• Updated Raw Science UI icons to be more consistent across the game.
• Adding shortcut for dropping items in the inventory screen (Drop Stack is in the context menu).
• Adding "Deposit/Receive Stack" button on storage UIs.
• Shift+clicking item stacks in the storage UIs will transfer the full stack clicked.
• Dragging an item stack onto the paper doll in the inventory screen will drop the item stack in the world.
• Crafting an item with a full inventory will now notify that the item was dropped in the world.
• Storage and Flag marker icons have been revised, regrouped, and their colors have shifted (Requires a one-time tour of the yard to set everything back / new trail markers will be blank by default).
• Slight revisions to a few SCA.B flavor schemes.
• Canteen slurps available are displayed in the equipped item HUD element
• Additional icon art
• Added a highlight effect that appears on interactable objects when the player looks at them. This feature is controlled by the "Highlight Objects" Accessibility setting.

World

• Revised clover cave layout and lighting, and moved entrance slightly.
• Revised flooded area layout in southeast corner of yard.
• Updated house electrical socket with final, non-blockout art
• Items left in the world (not in a container, etc.) for 48-72 in-game hours will eventually despawn once out of range of all players. Items loaded from a saved game from version 0.1.x, will have all item timers start at zero to give players a chance to react to this change.
• Players and critters now create ripples in the water while moving.
• Kids are starting to throw Archer Cookies over the fence, along with their Billy Hogs and Apples.
• Added a few footprints throughout the yard.

Buildings

• Base buildings will now be more reliably anchored when built on top of objects such as the Baseball
• Palisades will no longer immediately collapse when an attached building is removed.
• Water Containers can collect falling droplets.
• The player can now drink from Water Containers while holding weapons.
• Stairs may now be embedded in the ground like scaffolds and ramps.
• Walls that are sandwiched above by two floors will have their crenellations suppressed.
• The camera will slide to the correct position when interacting with a Weapon Wall Mount.
• Tweaked the placed position of the Weapon Wall Mount to be more centered.

Performance

• Better Windowed-Fullscreen performance in Windows versions of the game.
• Better UI/Inventory GPU performance.
• Significant load game time improvement for games with large bases.
• Better GPU performance during nighttime.

Other

• The Voice Chat Activation setting is now properly reapplied when entering a game.
• SCA.B flavor scheme collectibles now have a pulsing light and are slightly bigger to make them more noticeable.
• Hedge Berries now float in water.
• Prevented very large numbers of ants from being assigned the same task, such as killing a weevil.
• Reduced the camera near clip plane fixing the camera clipping into the player when using high a high field of view.
• Polished up spear movement and aiming animations for 1st person.
• You should now see grass extend to the furthest reaches of the yard.
• Ants now find and store lost Ice Caps.
• Soldier ants can now properly drop ant heads as loot.
• Tall woody weeds are now displayed as "Husky Weed." Dandelions and husky weed both still supply weed stems. Husky weed now respawns.
• Ants will not be happy if you take their eggs.
• The Resource Analyzer now animates when analyzing.
• A couple of new smoothies can be whipped up at the smoothie station.

Bug Fixes - All Platforms

Top Community Issues

• Incapacitated players are now saved instead of ignored when a save game is made or they exit the game. With this, players that reload an incapacitated character will have their backpack spawned where they died instead of them just spawning without their inventory in the world. NOT RETROACTIVE
• Items and insects will spawn under the world less. Cleaning up items/insects that have fallen through the level upon load. (This should help with insect population/egg spawning)
• Insects should no longer spawn inside of the large Pond rocks. Any insect currently in the rocks upon load should be snapped out. (This should help with insect population/egg spawning)
• Grass planks will no longer fall through the ground.
• Fixed Hedge Berries appearing in incorrect positions for clients, making them very difficult to harvest.
• Fixed torch sound effects.
• Insects should no longer "walk through walls" when not looking at them or when they are at your far away base.
• Fixed giant arrows sometimes spawning when shot into a large insect.

Major

• Multiplayer clients will no longer crash when despawning droplets containing items.

Game

• Optimized building collapsing so the game will no longer lock up when collapsing huge structures.
• The game will no longer crash when collapsing very long structures.
• Fixed issues where walls could get built in-between a wall snap spot messing up your wall grid
• Gnats will now need a little more delta-V than a Bounce Web can provide if they want to go to space.
• Fixed a problem where insects would not become appropriately hungry and sleepy after the players slept.

Items/Equipment/Resources

• Standalone buildings that are attached to walls and floors will collapse as well if the floor or wall they are on collapses.
• Large Rake Rock now has proper collision.
• Soda pop can now be dumped from a canteen.
• Fixed water droplets near sprinkler and oak tree that respawned immediately when you approached.
• Fixed gas arrows not being one-time use.
• Rotten Bee Armor can no longer be repaired for free.
• Workbench light will no longer be disabled after loading a save.

World

• Fixed wall crenellations appearing inconsistently on clients and the host.
• Fixed wall crenellations appearing incorrectly after loading a saved game.
• Fixed fingers moving on weapon hand during one handed movement animations.
• Restructured 3rd person body aiming for unarmed punching.
• Unfinished buildings no longer block the third person camera.
• Swapping armor after having collected Raw Science no longer displays the material of the previously equipped armor.
• Fixed issue with seeing fogless voids in the world after having emerged from a large body of water.
• Puddle drinking animation and camera improved to address clipping issues.

UI

• Fixed SCA.B Bugged scheme not appearing in list correctly.
• The resting UI updates properly upon bedtime.
• SCA.B won't flash thirst and hunger danger if levels are good.
• Defrag button in Inventory can now be navigated using the Gamepad.
• Less explosive results when using the Drop Stack action.
• Fixed Clover Hood and Poncho description being the same as the Leggings.

Bug Fixes - Windows 10 Store Version

• Fixed issues with 4k fullscreen resolution failing to work properly.
• Fixed issues with Alt-Tab crashing the game.

Bug Fixes - Xbox One Version

• Reduced screen edge artifacts / flashing.

Are you ready to handle a kaiju-sized crow in Grounded Update 0.2.0? Well, if you’re not then be sure to check out our Grounded guides to get some direction on how to best prepare yourself for the new adventures and challenges ahead!

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.