Collectable Items in Panau

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This article is about all the collectable items in Just Cause 2. For any other collectable items, see: Collectable Items - disambiguation.

This is a "Drug drop", one of the faction items in Just Cause 2.

Description

When observed from a distance, they all shine a lot of light.

• All Resource items are gray boxes, about 60 x 40 x 40 cm.
• The Faction items are different for different factions.
  • Skulls are collected for the Ular Boys. They appear as small ancient wooden crosses, with a skull on top. They might be graves. According to Sri Irawan, they contain "powerful magic". Skulls are mostly found in seemingly untouched nature areas, or at high altitudes such as mountain summits.
  • Black Boxes are dark gray boxes, just like the resource items. They're collected for the Reapers and are always underwater. It's unknown why the Reapers want these, but according to Bolo Santosi, they contain "revolutionary goodies."
  • Drug Drops are little metallic-white briefcases, containing drugs. They're collected for the Roaches and they're located on bridges, rooftops (in both civilian and military settlements) and Panau City. According to Razak Razman, who describes them as "cases of goodness", they were dropped from one of their cargo planes that were recently shot down by the Panau Military. That's very odd because the cases are all over Panau and not along with any pattern. Also because all cases are standing on the same edge. 

Finding them

Resource items

If you're having trouble finding the armor, weapon, cash and vehicle parts while trying to take over any given village or base, remember to keep an eye on the "transmission strength" indicator at the upper left corner of the mini-map. It looks like a radar dish, with signal strength "bars" like on a cell phone. If there are no stashes in the area, this icon will NOT appear. If you are in the immediate vicinity of a stash, the icon will start flashing and a faint, white arrow will appear in the center of your screen telling you which direction the stash is located. Once you are facing the right direction, a white circle icon with the stash type will appear on your screen telling you where the stash is (if the stash is behind a wall, the icon will still show on your screen).

Faction items

They are marked with a blue dot on the minimap, making finding them easier than resource items.

When finding faction items, if the faction item is some way away put the marker on it then once it's on your minimap cancel the marker and follow the mini-map instead, if you have a vehicle then align yourself straight towards it. If it isn't in plain sight when you are near it continues straight on foot and grapple, keeping in mind that it can be in a high place.

If it's in the water, if you have no vehicle/a disposable vehicle/a boat then go over the marker then dive down continuing going straight. If the collectible is way out in the water and you have no boat you will be forced to abandon your vehicle.

Consequently, it is best to pick up faction collectibles in one go, not whilst doing other things, as it shows up on your map anyway. This is also more time-efficient than getting them along the way. Unless of course, it is right near you and in plain sight.

If all else fails, just place a map marker on your PDA and it will show you its exact location.

Purpose

Collect them all.

• Resource items include vehicle and weapon upgrades (Vehicle Parts and Weapon Parts), upgrades for Rico's maximum health (Armor Parts, health is upgraded after 5 are collected), and cash bundles of $2500 each (Cash Stashes). There are more than enough weapon and vehicle parts to fully upgrade all 22 black market items to maximum, with plenty of excess parts that you will never be able to use.
• Faction items give you money (to buy equipment and vehicles at the Black Market) and progress the game by giving Chaos points.

Quotes

Whenever a faction item is collected, there is a chance one of the faction leaders will come over the PDA and tell Rico something. From top to bottom, they will be spoken in that order, not randomly.

Bolo Santosi

• "Scorpion, that black box you found belongs to the Reapers. There are more. Can you help us locate them?" - first one picked up after completing any of the stronghold takeovers for the Reapers
• "Another box of revolutionary goodies. Thank you!"
• "I thought we had lost them forever, but you seem to sniff them out comrade!"
• "Impressive! The people of Panau thank you."
• "Ah, ah, one more for the people."

Razak "The Razor" Razman

• "That case you just found, Scorpion. It comes from a cargo plane of ours that was recently shot down. These precious cases are spread out all over Panau. Find them for us, will you?" - first one picked up after completing any of the stronghold takeovers for the Roaches
• "Ahh. You found a case of goodness! Excellent work Scorpio!"
• "Very good my friend. Another case found!"
• "You have located another golden case Scorpio. I thank you!"
• "Bravo! I thought those goods were lost forever!"

Sri Irawan

• "You have found a sacred Ular skull, Scorpio. They belong to our people, but are spread out all over Panau. Please locate them for us." - first one picked up after completing any of the stronghold takeovers for the Ular Boys
• "You have located one of our precious ancestral skulls. Be most careful with it. There is powerful magic within."
• "Another one of our revered skulls serdadu."
• "Soon you will found all the ancestral skulls!"
• "My good friend. Soon you will have found all the ancestral skulls!"

List

There are 7 different collectable items in Panau, with a total of 3000 individuals. This Interactive external map lists them all in their locations.

Resource Items	Total Amount	Reward
Cash Stashes	450	$2500, each: $1,125,000 total
Armor Parts	400	Every fifth upgrades Rico's health: 80 upgrades total
Vehicle Parts	900	Can be used to upgrade Black Market vehicles
Weapon Parts	950	Can be used to upgrade Black Market weapons
Faction Items	Total Amount	Reward
Skulls	100	$2000 and 500 Chaos points each. $600,000 total; 150,000 total Chaos points
Black Boxes	100
Drug Drops	100

Trivia

• The faction items do not have an effect on the transmission bar on the minimap at first. Each faction item can be seen after a Stronghold takeover within a region. For instance, when the Berawan Besar Mountains have been taken over by the Reapers, all the faction items (including other faction items) will be located on the map as white/blue dots (similar to the yellow undiscovered settlement dot, but blue and round). The dots can appear white on some screens. The items can be collected before then if you know where to find them.
• In some cases, there are settlements that only need the collection of one item in order to complete it.
• Many bridges have two armor parts underneath them.
• It's actually possible to complete this game (not 100%, but all missions) by collecting only these items. So many of them result in settlement completions that there's no need to destroy any Sabotage Destructible Objects. Settlement completions and faction items give Chaos points and of course, it's impossible to play without having to destroy government vehicles, also causing chaos.
• Considering their origin (see above in the "faction items" section), there are several odd facts about the drug drops:
  • The drug drops ended up in different locations across Panau. The plane would have had to fly all the way all around Panau dropping those cases before crashing "somewhere" on Panau. There's a chance that the lost Roaches plane crashed at sea, but if not, it must be the Bering I-86DP on the western beach of Hantu Island. Smaller planes seen in Panau would have difficulty transporting that many briefcases at once due to weight, quantity or plane structure.
  • They're all standing on one edge. It would be extremely unlikely for them all to have landed that way. The only foreseeable reasons for this would be pure chance, or military officials or civilians placing them there themselves.
  • That said, Razak must've been unaware that some of his drug briefcases were taken by military officials or civilians because there is no plausible way some of his briefcases ended up undercover.
• Rico is not the only skull collector in Panau. Colonel Boon also collects them.
• Originally, if Rico did not join any faction by the time he found a collectible item, the Sloth Demon would have had to explain what he found. However, this did not make it into the final game, but the audio files do in fact remain. See the Cut game content from Just Cause 2.

Gallery

A "drug drop".

A "cash stash" at Kepulauan Pelaut Beta.

A "cash stash" near Colonel Jegathesan.

A "weapon part".

This map, marking the location of the Hot air balloon, also shows the locations of multiple faction items. They're the blue dots.

Another drug drop at Gunung Hotel Ski Resort.

Drug Drop odd location (1).JPG

Another drug drop in one of the four districts of Panau City.

Drug Drop odd location (2).JPG

Yet another drug drop at one of the four districts of Panau City.

Another drug drop in some village.

Drug Drop odd location (4).JPG

Another odd location for a Drug Drop somewhere along the highway in East Tanah Raya.

Drug Drop odd location (5).JPG

A Drug Drop near the base Kuala Gandin.

Drug Drop odd location (6).JPG

A Drug Drop in one of the four districts of Panau City.

Drug Drop odd location (7).JPG

A Drug Drop near the starting point for the Roaches side-mission Smugglers do Run.

A Drug Drop close to Pekan Ular Sawa.

Drug Drop odd location (9).JPG

In the Senjakala Islands.

Drug Drop odd location (10).JPG

In the Senjakala Islands.

Somewhere under a bridge.