How to get brittle whetstones and plating in Grounded 2 to upgrade your weapons and armour

Surviving the park in Grounded 2 is surprisingly hard, with new gear being few and far between in the early hours. Beat The Art of War mission, though, and you'll unlock the smithing station for armour and weapon upgrades. To construct the smithing station, and for the subsequent gear upgrades you'll undoubtedly want, you'll need brittle whetstones and brittle plating.

If you explored the scorpion cave in The Art of War mission well enough, then you'll have already found enough brittle plating to craft the smithing station (though with none to spare for armour upgrades). Weapon-upgrade whetstones, however, are much harder to find.

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How to get brittle whetstones and plating in Grounded 2

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You need to find brittle quartzite shards and brittle marble shards before crafting brittle whetstones and brittle plates, respectively, at a workbench to get this vital upgrade material in Grounded 2. In the early hours of the game, quartzite and marble deposits are incredibly rare, and you can't pinpoint them using the resource scanner you'll unlock after the A Strange Warning mission.

I've found lots of brittle quartzite and brittle marble shards in the following locations:

• The large tree at the centre of the Entrance area.
• The ground around the Picnic Table.
• The Toxic Anthill under the Picnic Table.
• The western border of the Ice Cream Truck region, near this area's Ranger Outpost.
• In the flower beds and gardens around the Statue area.

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In fact, in my experience, the Toxic Anthill, just north of where you start the game, is the best place to grab heaps of quartzite and marble shards—both brittle and sturdy versions—once you've geared up a little:

1. Head under the checkered picnic blanket on the east side, and you should see the cave entrance.
2. Head all the way down to the bottom of the cave until the dirt tunnels turn to stone and you start seeing cockroaches, and you'll begin to find hoards of quartzite and marble—as well as a Milk Molar location.
3. Break the quartzite and marble deposits using your omni-tool and collect the shards that drop.

I recommend bringing your soldier ant mount with you so the ants calling this area home don't attack you. Likewise, it's dark as hell in the tunnels, so stock up on torches so you don't get lost down there.

Once you've grabbed plenty of quartzite and marble shards, return to a workbench, and you'll be able to turn them into whetstones and plating in the resources tab. You can then construct the smithing station just like any other object.

Select a weapon or armour piece in the smithing station to upgrade it. This costs:

• Five brittle whetstones to upgrade a weapon from level zero to level one, increasing by five with each level up to a maximum of level three, at least for tier two weapons. Upgraded weapons gain bonus damage and durability.
• Two brittle plating to upgrade an armour piece from level zero to level one, increasing by two with each level up to a maximum of three levels for tier two armour. Upgraded armour benefits from improved defence and durability.

It's quite expensive early on, so I recommend making sure you repair your upgraded gear, rather than crafting and upgrading a fresh one each time it breaks.