In what I can only assume is Grounded 2's final mission and boss fight—I wouldn't know, I'm yet to beat it for reasons I'm about to go into—the trek to the Network Centre in the Networking mission is perilous in more ways than one. After spending hours exploring the Statue region and then climbing up to the Network Centre, I'm here to say "do the exact opposite of what I did" to avoid misery. And don't worry, this'll be as spoiler-free as possible.
After tracking down the two O.R.C transmitters in Signals and Stashes, you'll be sent on a quest to the Statue area in the northeast—already quite a trek from my base in Snackbar. You'll sneak in through the pipes, fight a miniboss, and finally emerge in the statue gardens, where you'll find new bugs, including praying mantis and fully-grown northern scorpions.
New bugs and other materials mean, you guessed it, more resources to analyse and new crafting recipes at your fingertips. In fact, it's where I finally unlocked tier three gear. Well, would have. The mistake I made was fully exploring the Statue zone, maxing out both my backpack and my trusty ant's saddlebags, and then continuing with the Networking quest under the assumption that I was nearly at the quest's end anyhow.
From the base of the hedge, reaching the Network Centre atop the statue is quite the climb by itself, involving a few tough fights on the way, wearing down your gear and likely filling up your backpack even more. But it doesn't stop there. In fact, it's only just begun, really.
Once you reach the ladder to the Network Centre, you then need to go up several floors of the facility, involving fighting, fighting, and more fighting, alongside sneaking through vents and solving a "puzzle" (if you can call it that). It takes a good hour or two before you've reached the end goal: a boss.
I won't spoil the fight, but it's quite demanding compared to other encounters, especially because you need sizzling resistance, which you won't know about until it's too late.
The issue I ran into, and you likely will too, is that my inventory was full of useful items for my overall progression, but not in the heat of battle. My gear had all broken and needed repairing, but I didn't have the basics to hand, meaning by the time I had reached the boss, I was in no state to fight them, let alone come out on top.
That's not even the worst of it. Since there's no fast-travelling in Grounded 2, I had two equally bad options ahead of me: spend a good hour or so hauling my ass all the way back down to the gardens and back home, or sacrifice my treasures and intentionally die to the boss to respawn at the onboarding facility next to my base.
I chose option two so I could switch off the game for the night, but now I've got the daunting task of hiking back to the Statue gardens, regathering the rare items I lost in my stranded backpack atop the Network Centre, and then fighting the boss for real.
Once you reach this quest, I recommend you do the smart thing and make two trips. Explore Statue, find all the new items and the Milk Molar locations, then return home and invest in your gear. Suit up with sizzling protection, a bunch of food and smoothies, and then kick the boss's ass on your second trip.
