Unless you’re playing Obsidian’s Grounded in creative mode, one of the first things you’ll need to get is water. Like food, it’s essential to your survival.
While you can simply drink from any pool of water found on the map, like puddles and the pond, it’s not particularly wise to do so. Drinking dirty water will refill part of your depleted thirst meter, sure, but it will also make you sick and greatly reduce your hunger meter.
So how do you find clean water in Grounded? Read on to find out.
Water Droplets
Finding water droplets, or dew droplets, is actually one of the harder ways to find water in Grounded. That’s because water droplets are hard to spot, and they spawn in completely random areas.
Typically, you’ll find water droplets hanging from the underside of green grass blades. So keep your head up when looking for them. The droplets are crystal clear, save for a little white around the edges. Use the reflection of the sun to spot them, or look for distorted background structures warped by the water.
Brown, dry grass won’t have dew droplets, so don’t waste your time looking there. I also haven’t found water droplets hanging from any other source in the game in its Early Access build, so you won’t find them hanging from the oak tree or from thistles either.
There are two ways to get water droplets hanging from grass blades:
- Climb a nearby plant, rock, mound, or structure to get level with the water and slurp it up
- Knock the droplet down with a pebblet
The latter is the most effective method. Water droplets don’t break when they hit solid ground, but they do bounce, so keep an eye on where they fall. Water droplets will, however, break and disappear if they hit a puddle.
You can store water droplets in the canteen by approaching a droplet and scooping it up. The Canteen can hold two water droplets, while the Canteen+ can hold four droplets. You cannot mix water with juice or soda in a canteen.
You can also “harvest” water droplets by crafting the Dew Collector, which will generate three gulps of clean water a day (every eight hours or so).
Juice Droplets
Keep an eye out for juice boxes around the backyard. They’re brightly colored, so you really can’t miss them.
They’re important because they produce juice droplets. These look almost exactly like water droplets, except they’re green, and they restore portions of your thirst and hunger meters. If you need a quick snack, drink a juice droplet for a quick boost.
Better yet, they’re already on the ground.
The only downside is that it seems juice only spawns once per day. However, I have found instances of three or four juice droplets together. Whether that’s an Early Access “glitch” or not, I don’t know.
You can also collect juice with the canteen; just remember that you can’t mix juice with water or soda!
Soda
Soda has a brownish tint to it and is similar to juice. Unsurprisingly, it is found near the soda cans strewn around the backyard. Like juice, soda seems to spawn about once a day, though I’ve seen clusters of it. It also replenishes some of your thirst and hunger meters, though it doesn’t seem to be as strong as juice.
Every once in a while, soda will spawn inside or underneath the edges of soda cans, so be sure to thoroughly check! Again, you can store soda in a canteen, but you can’t mix it with juice or water.
Nectar
Nectar can be found underneath big flowers, such as the rose bushes and tulips by the pond (both on the near and far sides). You’ll always find the bright yellow globs on the ground, almost always near the stem.
Be wary of harvesting this resource, though. Nectar is always near spiders, specifically Orb Weavers.
Like juice and soda, Nectar replenishes a decent amount of thirst and hunger. Though it’s not as good as the methods above, it is more potent than aphid honeydew.
Aphid Honeydew
There’s no doubt you’ve already seen the tiny green aphids flittering around almost every area of Grounded. They’re good for more than just meat and learning how to make decorations.
Aphids randomly produce aphid honeydew, which you’ll always find lying on the ground. It’s often an amber color: lighter than sap but darker than nectar.
Honeydew will replenish much more of your hunger meter than your thirst meter; its effect on thirst is almost non-existent. However, it’s useful in a pinch.
That’s all you need to know about finding clean water and other thirst-quenching resources in Grounded. For more tips, be sure to head over to our Grounded guides page!
