Collector

 is a Quest in Escape from Tarkov.

Dialogue
"Hello, mercenary. I have been watching you for quite a while now, and I know that you are able to solve the tasks assigned to you. Don't get too cocky now, you're not the only one who knows how to follow orders. There are more fighters like you, even more competent. I want to offer you a job, to give you a chance to become a part of something bigger than you can imagine. If you are ready, then here's an assignment for you: my people operate all over Tarkov and often leave souvenirs after themselves. The mission is to obtain and deliver those items to me. No questions asked. The things are extremely rare. I hope I don't have to remind you that you have to obtain all these items by yourself? Believe me, I like no other know when people lie. You will be informed of the drop spot. And one more thing, all my partners have already mastered their skills a long time ago and proven themselves reliable, and if you want to be one of them, then prove to me that you are not inferior to them in training. Don't try to contact me, I will do it myself when the time comes."

Requirements
To gain access to this quest, most, but not all quests in the game need to be completed. There is no clear pattern which quests are required. It's decided by the developers and changes with new game updates. The quest with the highest required level is Crisis at 48.

For keeping track of which quests are required, we have added the parameter "Required for Kappa container" to the infoboxes of quest pages as well as a column on the quests page.

If your experience deviates from our data, please let us know on our Discord or note it here.



Objectives

 * Find Old firesteel in raid
 * Hand over the Old firesteel
 * Find Antique axe in raid
 * Hand over the Antique axe
 * Find Battered antique book in raid
 * Hand over the Battered antique book
 * Find FireKlean gun lube in raid
 * Hand over the FireKlean gun lube
 * Find Golden rooster figurine in raid
 * Hand over the Golden rooster figurine
 * Find Silver Badge in raid
 * Hand over the Silver Badge
 * Find Deadlyslob's beard oil in raid
 * Hand over the Deadlyslob's beard oil
 * Find Golden 1GPhone smartphone in raid
 * Hand over the Golden 1GPhone smartphone
 * Find Jar of DevilDog mayo in raid
 * Hand over the Jar of DevilDog mayo
 * Find Can of sprats in raid
 * Hand over the Can of sprats
 * Find Fake mustache in raid
 * Hand over the Fake mustache
 * Find Kotton beanie in raid
 * Hand over the Kotton beanie
 * Find Raven figurine in raid
 * Hand over the Raven figurine
 * Find Pestily plague mask in raid
 * Hand over the Pestily plague mask
 * Find Shroud half-mask in raid
 * Hand over the Shroud half-mask
 * Find Can of Dr. Lupo's coffee beans in raid
 * Hand over the Can of Dr. Lupo's coffee beans
 * Find 42 Signature Blend English Tea in raid
 * Hand over the 42 Signature Blend English Tea
 * Find Veritas guitar pick in raid
 * Hand over the Veritas guitar pick
 * Find Armband (Evasion) in raid
 * Hand over the Armband (Evasion)
 * Find Can of RatCola soda in raid
 * Hand over the Can of RatCola soda
 * Find Loot Lord plushie in raid
 * Hand over the Loot Lord plushie
 * Find WZ Wallet in raid
 * Hand over the WZ Wallet
 * Find LVNDMARK's rat poison in raid
 * Hand over the LVNDMARK's rat poison
 * Find Smoke balaclava in raid
 * Hand over the Smoke balaclava
 * Find Missam forklift key in raid
 * Hand over the Missam forklift key
 * Find Video cassette with the Cyborg Killer movie in raid
 * Hand over the Video cassette with the Cyborg Killer movie
 * Find BakeEzy cook book in raid
 * Hand over the BakeEzy cook book
 * Find JohnB Liquid DNB glasses in raid
 * Hand over the JohnB Liquid DNB glasses
 * Find Glorious E lightweight armored mask in raid
 * Hand over the Glorious E lightweight armored mask
 * Find Baddie's red beard in raid
 * Hand over the Baddie's red beard
 * Find DRD body armor in raid
 * Hand over the DRD body armor
 * Find Gingy keychain in raid
 * Hand over the Gingy keychain
 * Find Golden egg in raid
 * Hand over the Golden egg
 * Find Press pass (issued for NoiceGuy) in raid
 * Hand over the Press pass (issued for NoiceGuy)
 * Find Axel parrot figurine in raid
 * Hand over the Axel parrot figurine
 * Find BEAR Buddy plush toy in raid
 * Hand over the BEAR Buddy plush toy

Rewards
"Have you got it all? Good, mercenary. Your hard-earned reward awaits you in the specified drop-spot, just as promised. Congratulations, and welcome."
 * 1× Secure container Kappa
 * 1× Armband (DEADSKUL)

Riddle
Until April 19, 2019 this quest was called "A049 C026 0101PD". There was a riddle hidden in the the dialogue and reward text.

Old description
417420696e7465726368616e676520776520776572652061742062617 368207a797877767574737271706f6e6d6c6b6a6968676665646362612 07072797a317574733871356f6e6d6c6b6a336867666534633261

36742074683120316e61206f6620387420366c6c2c20326f75206d7573 742035386c6c207468312035386c6c3620616e64205572416743652044 45726f5252694d

Old reward text
=EjNyQzY2MzMjZjM3kjNyIjY2YjM - 3 ==Qdy5yaqBybx1G 31IqhWZ4lGI1hnagwSdytmagYXZgUnZxhXagEH 31IklHI2JWdph2al9GIiFXdsVHagUmagU3cxJmZg 31IWc5NXdmlGIxBSa5BSdoVHeqpgZpNGdgQ3Y 31gMnZvlWZnBybgI2dgQnezdmZpNWbgInY3RHI 316p3drBSaj1GIscmYvt2ZgYHa3tGI1J2d692cyBiZ 31zhGdvpgcyVWdnBSZiBichJGIsgXeupGIypnYlB 31yciBSZiVmcjpncgEXeoJWdmBiZjJ3ZmBCbh5m 31egomY1pgC0tGe1BCazFGZ3dXa4xGIjBHboBS 31dkByZ0FnYqNGI0dXaKAiZlJ3b6hWYgcmZlZ3cg 31IXdnByciBiYqdGIoJGbgcWd0hmYl9GIyFmdzNnT - 2 ==AdpBiZvBCd19GI mxWZzJXdvlHIlRXY09mcgwCbsV2dgMXYgI XZi1WduBiblRHI09mcgMXag4WZlRncphGd - 1 rebmun eslaf si neetriht taht si hturt dnoces ,6 dna 4 fo mus eht ees uoy esab eht ta ,si hturt tsriF

Quest description decryption
Solving the riddle starts with the quest description, the first paragraph of the hex encoded text equating to  and the second one to. The first uncovered paragraph indicates the existence of Atbash ciphered text, the text  equating to , a clear substitution pattern. Using the aforementioned substitution pattern, we can take the second paragraph found in the quest description and translate it to, a clue which will become useful later along with the   and   texts.

Quest reward text decryption
The first operation to be applied to the quest reward text seems obvious, either from the  (  if mirrored) text or from the nature of the text, it being a simple mirror of the whole text block. After a mirror, the paragraph  is revealed, making us understand that the number 13 should be eliminated in all further findings and that the base being used for them will be 64, instead of the human-used 10. Thus, after removing the already used text, removing the number 13 and decoding the text from Base64, we can observe the following text:  which indicates the use of the rot13 cipher. After another removal of our used text and a rot13 decryption we can observe the following lines:  coupled with   and   coupled with   which indicate the Affine and  Caesar ciphers respectively. After decyphering the Affine encoded text with the values  we obtain   and after decoding the Caesar encoded texts with a shift of 1 and 3 respectively we obtain after dealing with , both clues helping later.

Piecing everything together
To continue, we'll start with the remainder of our quest reward text:  a hex encoded string which we should not decrypt for now. The clue  shows that 2 (a number which looks similar to a swan) should be replaced by the number 5, doing so in our hex text and then finally decoding it, indicated by the   clue, giving us. Looking closely at the obtained string, we can observe the existence of the word  within it, the clue   telling us to remove it from the text. Doing so will finally reveal the text  which if attached to the   string obtained earlier, and being added onto a YouTube short link, as indicated by   revealing a YouTube video.

The pastebin
Approximately a week after finding the first YouTube video, a Pastebin link surfaced in the video description. For ease in describing the decryption progress, we'll split the document in 4 sections, one for each paragraph and will start with the last one since it exposes the 1st step within the process.

Paragraph 4
The paragraph is Base64 encoded, but before decoding it, all characters that are found surrounded by a  character need to be deleted and the contents need to be set aside to form the string   which equates to   in hexadecimal. After the removal of the odd characters, the text  is revealed. We can note down the "file number" as the rest is just flavor text.

Paragraph 3
Using the former ROT47 clue we can solve this paragraph, applying a ROT47 decryption after a Base64 decode yielding the content we need, but slightly malformed. To clear this malformation every 22nd character in the original string needs to be removed (all of the characters being a 0), thus revealing. Like the last paragraph, we can ignore all text besides the file number.

Paragraph 2
After a reverse of this paragraph we can observe the string  (originally  ) is an outlier and will serve as a clue later, so we can remove it. The rest of the paragraph (still reversed) can simply be Base64 decoded to find. As with the former paragraphs, keep the file number and ignore the rest.

Paragraph 1
As with the former paragraphs we start with a simple Base64 decode. We can now take the  clue and use it as a substitute alphabet while ignoring the importat numbers, giving us the   string, which again, can be disregarded besides the file number.

Finale
Concatenating all file numbers together yields. If we group the characters and get their coresponding ASCII character, we obtain  which leads to the final YouTube video. The video had a few game keys in its description.

Trivia
The second found video is reused into an official short movie called "Raid".

Sběratel Sammler Collectionneur A049 C026 0101PD