Chemical Part 4 or Out of Curiosity or Big Customer?
- Aug 26
- 4 min read
After completing Chemical Part 3 from Skier, players unlock three simultaneous quests: Chemical Part 4 (Skier), Out of Curiosity (Therapist), and Big Customer (Prapor). All three require the exact same task: locate and mark a chemical transport vehicle on the Customs map with an MS2000 Marker. Mark the vehicle, survive the thirty seconds of “please don’t shoot me while I’m crouched in this dark corner,” and extract alive—boom, objective complete. All three quests are ready to be completed. But here’s the catch: you can only choose one trader. Picking one automatically fails the other two. So, who do you sell your soul to? Let’s break it down.
The 3 Quests
Once you accept the Chemical Part 4 quest from Skier, you obtain two other quests.
Out of Curiosity from Therapist
Big Customer from Prapor
All three quests are identical in objectives. The only thing that changes is who you ultimately turn it in to.
The job: find a vehicle carrying a box of chemicals marked with strange symbols, on the map Customs.
The location: inside Warehouse 4, near the Smugglers’ Bunker (the old ZB-1012) extraction point. Look for a van with a big metal pole sticking out of its engine—kind of hard to miss. Slap the MS2000 Marker on the back, pray nobody domes you during the 30-second timer, and you’re done.
See the three quests, and all the details, at these links that lead to the EFT Wiki:
Elements of the Choice
Sure, you could make this decision based on sympathy for one of the traders, or who seems like the “good guy” if you’re role-playing a moral compass.
But let’s be honest: Escape from Tarkov is a brutal survival game set in a merciless hellhole. Nobody here is “good”. You’re not an angel: you’re a mercenary. So the smart choice? Cold, hard pragmatism. Rewards and penalties.
Now, about those penalties. Choosing one trader will nuke your reputation with the other two: a flat –0.25 each.
That’s not pocket change. In theory, you would need to grind it back with several quests, but in reality, Nikita tossed us a bone: each “betrayed” trader has a specific reparatory quest you can do to mend the relationship.
Some are laughably easy. Others are absolute torture.
Let’s check the damage.
Rewards & Consequences
Choosing Therapist (Out of Curiosity):
7,700 XP
+0.04 Therapist reputation
170,000 roubles
Reputation loss: -0.25 with Skier and Prapor
Choosing Skier (Chemical Part 4):
6,500 XP
+0.04 Skier reputation
35,000 roubles
Reputation loss: -0.25 with Therapist and Prapor
Choosing Prapor (Big Customer):
8,100 XP
+0.03 Prapor reputation
200,000 roubles
Reputation loss: -0.25 with Skier and Therapist
The “Apology” Quests
Skier: Loyalty Buyout → Hand him 1,000,000 roubles. Ouch, but doable.
Therapist: Trust Regain → Deliver four specific keys found in raid. Absolute nightmare.
Prapor: No Offence → Give him 10 M67 hand grenade (not required to be FiR). Easy: not difficult to find in raid, or buy them straight from Peacekeeper (barter) or the Flea Market.
The Choice → Out of Curiosity
Most players, when they put down the role playing compass and pick up the calculator, end up siding with Therapist. Why? That beautiful little Injector Case.
It fits inside your Secure Container, takes just one slot, and holds nine injectors.
It’s basically tactical performance-enhancing drug storage on demand. Bring whatever you need (healing stuff, painkillers, stamina boosts, increased strength, bleed stoppers) and if you’ve got empty slots, stash any injectors you loot mid-raid, especially the rare expensive ones. This thing pays for itself in both survival and profit.
By comparison:
The Grenade Case saves stash space. Big deal, but you can just buy it cheap later.
The Ammo Cases are nice for stash Tetris, sure, but again, no real impact on gameplay.
Injector Case = life-changer. The others = glorified IKEA boxes.
Penalty and Reparation
And here’s the kicker: the “make-it-up-to-them” quests massively favor siding with Therapist.
To fix Prapor: Hand him 10 M67s. Easy peasy: loot or buy. Not FiR required.
To fix Skier: Pay 1 million roubles. Painful if you’re broke or stuck in a Hardcore wipe, but realistically grindable.
To fix Therapist (if you betray her): Deliver four specific keys found in raid. Translation: RNG torture. Or, if Flea Market is open, pay inflated prices because every other poor bastard needs them too. And if Flea is closed like it is now for the Hardcore Wipe? Have fun running 200 raids.
In short: choosing Therapist gives you the easiest reputation recovery path. Choosing anyone else saddles you with the Therapist key-quest nightmare.
Other Possible Choices
Of course, there are edge cases where betraying Therapist might make sense.
Lore/roleplay reasons: you hate Therapist, you hate doctors, you simp for sketchy Skier, or Prapor reminds you of your dad and you could never disappoint him.
You already own Injector Cases (plural, you loot-goblin).
You already have the four Therapist keys ready to go.
You desperately need stash space for ammo or grenades and can’t get the cases otherwise.
But honestly? These are fringe cases. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they’re bad excuses.
Let’s be real: unless you’re cosplaying a moral compass or doing some weird loyalty run, Out of Curiosity with Therapist is the clear winner. You get the Injector Case, you avoid the therapist’s insane key grind, and fixing your rep with the others is relatively painless.
So yeah, Therapist is the “least bad” option.
Welcome to Tarkov, where even the best choices feel like a scam.
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