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Grounded

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The Mysterious Machine

By
Scott Peers

This page details everything you need to know about how to complete The "Mysterious Machine" iconMysterious Machine in Grounded, including how to fix the lasers by cutting down a blade of grass, where to find what’s weakening one of the lasers by killing mites underground, and how to activate the lasers.

The Mysterious Machine, Grounded.

How to Fix the Lasers

You’ll find The Mysterious Machine not long after you first arrive in the yard. It’s just northeast of the baseball, near to where you spawn in the chest, as shown in the map below. The first thing you’ll need to do is interact with the buttons on the machine to start it up.

Cut Down the Blade of Grass

When you first arrive at the machine you’ll notice that there are three lasers shining towards it if you look up. Two of these are hitting the connectors as they should, although one is weakened (we’ll get to that soon!), while the other is blocked. There’s a blade of grass to the northeast which is blocking the laser from hitting the connector, so you’ll need to cut this down first, which requires a "Pebblet Axe" iconPebblet Axe. See our guide on How to Craft a Pebblet Axe to get one.

Once you’ve crafted the axe, equip it and then get slashing. When the grass is cut the laser should now be hitting the connector.

(1 of 3) The location of the mysterious machine, northeast of where you spawn initially.

How to Find What’s Weakening the Laser

You can now move on to discovering what is weakening the other laser, which you can see is flashing from the southwest, towards the house. You’ll need to run over to the bottom of the machine here to find a hole in the ground, with some red mites chewing at the wires both outside and inside the hole. You’ll need to kill all of the red mites to stop the laser from being weakened, and you’ll need a torch to see properly underground. See our guide on How to Craft a Torch for that. If you haven’t got one already, we’d also recommend using a spear here to kill the red mites, which you can craft using our guide on How to Craft a Pebblet Spear.

Activate the Lasers

After you’ve killed all the red mites that are chewing at the wires both inside and outside the hole, the quest should update prompting you to investigate the machine further. You can now go back to the machine and interact with the buttons again, which will trigger a cutscene that directs you to the Oak Tree lab, located to the northeast of the machine, and leads you into the next quest.

(1 of 3) You’ll need to travel to the base of the machinery from which the weakened laser is being emitted to find the mites in the hole.

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Guide Information
  • Publisher
    Microsoft Game Studios
  • Platforms,
    PC, Steam, XB One, XB X|S
  • Genre
    Survival
  • Guide Release
    26 September 2022
  • Last Updated
    21 November 2023
    Version History
  • Guide Author

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Grounded is a survival game published by Oblivion Entertainment. It has been in early access since July 2020, and was fully released on September 27th, 2022.

In this guide, you’ll find information on all essential aspects of the game:

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