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After defeating the Masked Stranger, you can now explore the entire park in Grounded 2. To move around quickly, you’ll need a good vehicle or, more realistically, strong legs. The Orb Weaver mount is a powerful and flexible buggy that can get you nearly anywhere on the map. Plus, it has impressive offensive abilities, making it worth the effort to unlock.
Grounded 2 is still in early access, so some details may change over time.
Unlocking the Orb Weaver Buggy
You’ll naturally unlock the Red Ant Soldier during the story. However, the Orb Weaver is a bit easier to overlook. To get it, you need the Network Center TURBO Optical Disk, which you receive after defeating the Masked Stranger near the Burgl statue. During early access, this marked the end of story content, so if you turned off the game before unlocking this, you might have missed the Orb Weaver.
Once you have the disk, take it to any Ranger Station at a ranger outpost. There, you can buy the Orb Weaver buggy for 5000 raw science—2000 of which are rewarded for scanning the disk.
Hatching an Orb Weaver
If you made a hatchery earlier in the game, you’ll already have it; if not, you’ll need to rebuild one using common materials found throughout the yard:
- 6 Weed Stems
- 1 Acorn Top
- 5 Acorn Shells
- 5 Mite Fuzz
By this point, you’ll probably have the level-two omnitool axe and a Red Ant Soldier buggy, which makes collecting materials easier. You can harvest Weed Stems from hardy weeds or dandelions, and your ant can carry them for you.
Building the Spider Nest
Though not strictly necessary, building a Spider Nest is helpful for storing your Orb Weaver buggies. This large structure needs ample space and requires:
- 6 Weed Stems
- 6 Pine Needles
- 6 Web Fibers
- 4 Silk Ropes
Weed Stems are easy to gather from dandelions or hardy weeds, especially in the pine area or the dry bricks area of the map—look under trees, as they blend into the ground debris. Web fibers are obtained from dead spiders or spider webs, and can be spun into rope at a spinning wheel. Each rope needs one web fiber, so you’ll need a total of 10 web fibers: six raw and four spun into ropes.
Pine Needles are more complex; they can be gathered from needle bundles scattered in the pine zone or the dry bricks area, usually underneath trees and requiring a level-two omnitool axe to collect.
Materials for the Harness
To build the Orb Weaver’s harness, you’ll need:
- 3 Blueberry Leathers
- 4 Red Ant Mandibles
- 3 Acorn Shells
Blueberry Leather can be crafted from blueberries found on top of picnic tables or near the ice cream stand in the glade. These areas only require a level-one omnitool axe. Be cautious, as these spots are also popular with stronger insects like spiders, bees, and mosquitoes.
Finding an Orb Weaver Egg
The most challenging part of hatching your Orb Weaver is locating its egg. Like the Red Ant Soldier, the egg must be carried manually to your hatchery—it doesn’t go into your inventory. The egg is typically found under Burgl’s body; circle the body until you see a tunnel leading underneath. In the tunnel’s center, you’ll find several eggs guarded by spider webs, Orb Weaver juveniles, and fully grown Orb Weavers.
Depending on how quick you are, you might also encounter wolf spiders patrolling the area.
The best way to retrieve the egg is to use your Red Soldier Ant buggy. Because it’s fast and can hold the egg, you can avoid most combat. Quickly grab the egg, return to the hatchery, and if you have all the required materials, hatch your Orb Weaver. Hatching takes about 24 in-game hours, so you can sleep or do other activities while waiting. Remember to dismiss your bug before the hatchling is ready, as you can’t have two buggies at once.
Using the Orb Weaver Buggy
Once hatched, the Orb Weaver is faster and more mobile than the Red Ant Soldier and has far greater offensive power. It can sprint into enemies, damaging and sometimes killing smaller bugs like mites and weevils. While it can’t damage larger foes such as stink bugs or other spiders, charging through packs of mites helps clear nuisances efficiently.
In addition, Orb Weavers can fire webs to trap prey or escape threats by immobilizing enemies or crossing webs without slowing down. This grants access to new areas, such as climbing the Burgle Lectern or the side of the Hot Dog Stand.
However, the Orb Weaver has some limitations. It cannot chop or carry grass, making it less useful for base-building than the ant. Also, riding an Orb Weaver doesn’t prevent spiders from attacking you—its immunity from webs doesn’t extend to avoiding predators or enemies.
The most notable advantage is the Orb Weaver’s ability to traverse web bridges and pass through webs without getting entangled, opening up parts of the park previously unreachable.
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