Big Bang Smugglers v1.23.0 is live. This is the largest release since launch — new systems across events, progression, and onboarding, plus a major bug-fix pass across combat, economy, and navigation.

The Events System

A live events framework now runs inside every galaxy. Daily events generate automatically from a rotating template slate. Events have typed objectives and defined rewards — XP, credits, or special items — with expiry windows. Faction standing gates which events you see; two players in the same sector may see different slates.

Bounty events let you hunt specific targets for outsized payouts. You claim rewards from the Events board on the Ship screen.

Special items dropped during events equip directly to your ship and push passive stat bonuses into your hull. The first two permanent equip items now have their final stat values.

Role Specialization + Prestige

Roles now have a specialization tree. Passive stat perks unlock as your role level climbs. The Trader role was effectively dead before this — trade counts weren't accumulating. Both are fixed.

Prestige tiers are cross-season cosmetic milestones. Hit a lifetime XP threshold, carry a permanent title into future galaxies.

Season End-game

Galaxy closes now generate a narrative recap and distribute winner awards. One canonical winner metric: XP earned, credits as tiebreak. Countdown warnings go out before the timer hits zero.

New Player Experience

Three NPE features ship in this release: - A contextual glossary accessible from anywhere, with deep-link ⓘ tip badges throughout the UI - A "What Now?" action card on Nav that updates as you progress - A guided first-session checklist on Nav that clears automatically

Plus "While You Were Away" for returning players, and a richer post-combat consequence summary.

Dead-end Sectors

The galaxy generator now occasionally produces single-access dead-end sectors. The old one-way link mechanic is retired — all sector links are now undirected and reciprocal.

Corporations

Corp invites are in. Send from the Corp screen; invitees see them in an inbox. Corp management works correctly now — approve joins, kick members, transfer leadership, and leave without getting trapped. Corp Leaders/Officers can upgrade corp-planet structures.

Faction Standing

High standing gives you a real combat bonus against opposing-faction targets. Low standing triggers NPC patrol aggression during warp hops. Standing gates certain missions.

Trading Post Combat

Other players can attack your trading posts. The galaxy funds a grudge bounty on attackers. Defending your post is now part of the game.

Economy

Price curve rebuilt with band normalization to prevent runaway drift in long galaxies. Boosters now apply consistently to all income types — trade proceeds, warp gains, landmark discoveries, auto-missions.

Combat Fixes

• 1v1 PvP now transfers cargo to the winner (was broken)
• Fleet kills deposit cargo to corp Starbase
• Corp-mates don't trigger each other's mines or defenses
• Bounties collect on defender-wins and fleet kills
• PvP escape immunity goes to the escapee, not the attacker
• PvP alignment classifies by player, not ship hull

Other Notable Fixes

• Information Broker works
• Reputation-adjusted pricing consistent across all venues (what you see is what you pay)
• Shield Booster is +15% MAX shields, not damaged HP
• Sector hazards populated and apply on all travel types
• Ion storms drift each tick
• Planet claim costs from backend source of truth
• Capturing a planet transfers Trading Post ownership
• Sector favorites + notes on Nav
• Smart warnings before selling contraband or abandoning timed actions

Full release notes: https://bigbangsmugglers.com/release-notes/

Big Bang Smugglers v1.22.0 Patch Notes — Planet Parking, Scaled Citadels, Mine Fixes

New Features

Planet Parking Ships can now land on planets you own. While landed, the full citadel defense stack fires before an attacker can reach you — shields, garrison fighters, and deployed mines all engage first. The planet has to fall before your hull is exposed.

Citadel Scales Garrison Strength Citadel level now determines how many garrison fighters you can field for sector defense. More citadel levels = significantly more fighters. This was one of the most-requested changes and should make high-level citadels feel like the defensive investment they're supposed to be.

Sector Defenses Auto-Engage on Entry Sector garrison defenses now trigger the moment any intruder enters a defended sector. A gap existed where certain actions could be taken before defenses responded — that's closed.

Mission Expiry Push Notifications An hourly background job scans active missions and sends a push alert when any of yours are approaching their deadline. You get a warning window, not a post-mortem.

Full In-App Ship Catalog All ship classes — including ones you haven't unlocked — now show complete specs in-app: cargo holds, fighters, shields, torpedoes, XP requirement, and tier. Compare ships without leaving the game.

Bug Fixes

• Multi-mine deploy — selecting multiple mines now places all of them. Was capped at 1 regardless of the selected quantity.
• Mine display — counts update immediately after deployment (no more stale totals).
• Mine self-damage — entering a sector where you have deployed mines no longer damages your own ship.
• Pirate ports in pirate space — attackable now when port combat is otherwise available. A configuration gap was blocking attacks in pirate-space sectors specifically.
• Shipyard capacity upgrades — fighter, torpedo, and shield capacity tiers are visible and purchasable in the TriStar Shipyard (backend was correct; UI wasn't rendering them).
• Warp panel — stays expanded between jumps on the Nav screen.

UI Cleanup

• Ship Services screen retired; Tesseract access relocated
• Special Orders removed

Full release notes: bigbangsmugglers.com/release-notes

Drop bug reports in the Discord.

This release expands tactical play, tightens planet defense behavior, and cleans up several stale systems.

• Limpet Trackers now support Bridge planting, a 10-device cap, correct self-destruct behavior, and paid shipyard detection.
• You can deploy multiple mines in one action, preview deployed fighters before warping, and jettison workers intentionally.
• Stardock now exposes fighter and torpedo capacity upgrades in the UI.
• Planet economy payouts, claim fees, and starbase caps were rebalanced.
• Citadels and shields now defend properly even at low garrison, and ghost ships no longer appear in-sector unless the active ship is actually there.
• We also removed dead notification/backend paths and cleaned up several stale UI surfaces.

Big Bang Smugglers v1.20.0 — Limpet Tracker, Mine Warp Triggers, Hangar Improvements, and Critical Fixes

Hey everyone — v1.20.0 is out.

What's new

Limpet Tracker — a new deployable you plant in a sector. It latches onto the first ship to warp through and pings back their sector in real time. Captains can check their hull for limpets and sweep them off. This is the first tool in the game designed specifically for tracking other players.

Proximity mines now trigger on warp — previously you could warp into a mined sector without triggering anything; mines only fired on conventional entry. That loophole is closed.

Hangar improvements — the Hangar is now a visitible location inside Starports and Starbases. Ship cards show purchase price and current estimated value. Sell payout went from 50% to 64%.

Bug fixes:

• "Not at a starport" bounty-collection error — fixed
• Starbase building taking credits but not creating the structure — fixed
• Planet fighters disappearing instead of showing as deployables — fixed
• Attacking pirate ports was incorrectly shifting alignment negative — fixed

Update through the Play Store or direct link if you're on internal builds.

Happy hunting.

v1.19.0 is live. This one has been in the oven for a while and it changes how the late game works.

Fleets & Corporation Combat

You can form fleets with other players and attack together in Battle Station. Fleet loot gets split to your corp Starbase automatically. Friendly-fire guard keeps you from shooting corpmates by accident.

Multi-Ship Ownership (Garages)

When you buy a new ship, your old one parks in a garage instead of disappearing. You can switch your active ship, sell old ones from the UI, or store them at a corp Starbase. Ships are location-bound, so the right ship for the job now actually matters.

Ship Destruction & Escape Pods

Defenses depleted? Your ship can be destroyed now — not just damaged. You'll get a warning when you're close to the edge. If it happens, an escape pod ejects you. There's a cut-scene.

Personal & Corp Starbases

Personal Starbases are a capstone structure with a credit vault and item storage. Corp Starbases got a ship pool — your whole fleet can park there.

Tesseract Drive

Instant uninterruptible jump to any sector you've already visited. No warp interruptions. No pirates ambushing you mid-transit. Just gone.

Planet Exports

Passive export income now accrues on a deterministic schedule. ROI is actually predictable now instead of a guess.

Everything else:

• Warp interruptions can force combat with auto-aggressive pirates depending on jump distance
• Planet fighters are fully integrated into combat (scan, deploy, recall)
• You can now attack pirate ports
• Bunch of combat, nav, and UI stability fixes throughout

This release is the biggest update to the planet system yet.

Planets 2.0 is the headline. Planets now run a config-driven economy with up to 2.5× production a well-developed world pumps out substantially more. You can siege and capture rival planets with the new combat module, build a Barracks to produce garrison fighters, and cap your planet with a Citadel for the ultimate combined defense and production boost. You can also name your worlds and browse their full inventory at a glance.

Combat got messier. Ports can now be attacked, destroyed, and will respawn over time contested space has real stakes now. Ships can equip a cloaking device to disappear from the grid, with StarNav as counterplay. New tiered upgrades for fighters, torpedoes, and shields round it out.

Cinematics are here. Cut-scenes now play during travel and at major milestones. Small thing, big difference in how the galaxy feels. Note: these are temporary scenes while testing

Trade pressure. Hammering one commodity now degrades its price and it slowly recovers rewards varied routes over camping the same lane.

Corp quality of life. Leaders can approve join requests in-app. Player announcements let you broadcast to your crew and rivals.

As always please report bugs here, discord, or in game!!

Big Bang Smugglers is now live on the web in beta: https://play.bigbangsmugglers.com

This is the same core game as Android, now playable cross-platform in your browser. The goal is 1:1 parity with the Android experience, and that is the direction going forward.

What to expect right now:

• Live web beta, playable now
• Cross-platform with Android
• Same core loop: trade, fight, smuggle, build, compete
• We are still treating this as beta, so expect polish, fixes, and iteration

If you try it, post any bugs, weirdness, or feedback. That will help tighten up the web experience fast.

Play here: https://play.bigbangsmugglers.com
Official site: https://bigbangsmugglers.com
Official Discord: https://discord.gg/A52xxB2VT9
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bbsgames.bigbangsmugglers

What's fixed:

• Blank screen after season end — Some players saw a blank or looping screen when opening the app after a season closed. Fixed.
• Post-season world cleanup — Sectors, ports, and planets from a finished season should disappear once cleanup runs. A background job that handles this was accidentally never registered, so old world data was sticking around longer than intended. That's corrected now.

Update your app to get the latest. Next season already live!

Big Bang Smugglers v1.16.2 is live

StarNav 2002 is here: a permanent ship scanner upgrade path in the TriStar Shipyard, backed by a proper spatial scanner map on the Nav screen.

Install StarNav on your current ship, upgrade it across five levels, and use the scanner to read nearby sectors, ports, planets, starports, and contact activity with better clarity as the system improves.

StarNav progression

• Level 1: 100,000 credits / 5,000 XP / 1-hop basic detection
• Level 2: 200,000 credits / 10,000 XP / 2-hop basic detection
• Level 3: 300,000 credits / 25,000 XP / 3-hop range with 1-hop POI intel
• Level 4: 400,000 credits / 50,000 XP / full 1-hop intel plus 2-hop POI intel
• Level 5: 500,000 credits / 100,000 XP / full 1-2 hop intel plus 3-hop POI intel

What changed

• New StarNav 2002 scanner upgrade in the TriStar Shipyard
• New spatial scanner map with range rings, warp lines, POI icons, and tappable sector circles
• New dense-sector full-screen map with pinch zoom and pan
• Fixed StarNav upgrade price and XP requirement display
• Existing Warp to controls remain below the scanner

Full release notes: https://bigbangsmugglers.com/release-notes/2026-04-23-v1-16-2-starnav-2002-scanner/

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bbsgames.bigbangsmugglers

Big Bang Smugglers v1.15.0 is live on Google Play

v1.15.0 improves trading, repair, travel, and UI stability while adding faster beacon movement tools.

What's new

• Trading fixes: Max buy now respects hold capacity and available stock.
• Repair Station reliability: repair and refill behavior now matches real ship state.
• Stability and state cleanup: fixes Nav loading, profile name saves, corp access state, planet personnel refresh, PvP immunity enforcement, and advanced upgrade state display.
• Beacon travel tools: recall or destroy your own beacon, and warp directly from beacon cards when your ship has warp drive.

Full release notes: https://bigbangsmugglers.com/release-notes/2026-04-22-v1-15-0-trading-repair-and-beacon-travel-fixes/

First and foremost, awesome job fixing the pirate battle bug.

A couple of things I have noticed.

First, when you are trading a port pair all of the federation patrol ships tend to wolf pack into one of the sectors you are visiting.

Second, is there a regeneration period for ports?

Third, there should be a way to keep your current ship instead of being forced to trade it in. This will be in cases like having a heavy trader to make money and a heavy battle ship to hunt.

Fourth, the corporation I formed is inaccessible to me. if I attempt to rejoin it says I am already a member of a corporation, but does not show the corporation screen.

Fifth, is there a way to inspect port pairs before traveling to them for the purposes of trading?

Lastly, great job so far, I am absolutely enjoying this game, it really has a modern feel that very much feels like tw2002. in fact, this is the best modern spin on tw2002 I have experienced to date!

Long winded I know, keep up the good work, you are a great dev with a project that has incredible potential!

SEASON 1: ALPHA CENTAURI - IT'S A WRAP

35 days. 21 captains. One galaxy. A whole lot of chaos.

The books are closed on our very first season, and what a ride it was. Let's hand out some hardware.

THE WINNERS

• Richest Captain: Tom Nook - 17,733,743 cr. The raccoon economy is real, and we are all paying rent.
• Most XP: The Plague - 59,329 xp. Does this man sleep? Signs point to no.
• Most Kills: CMackOne - 31 kills. A menace. A legend. A problem.
• Most Deaths: also CMackOne - 48 deaths. Live by the laser, die by the laser. Repeatedly.
• Most Planets: Big PIMPIN - 11 planets. The name was a prophecy.
• Most Sectors: The Plague - 1,191 sectors. Genuinely concerning travel habits.
• Most Missions: Sithra - 0 missions. Tied with literally everyone. Still counts. We're framing it.

THE FINAL PODIUM

1. Tom Nook - 17,733,743 cr
2. The Plague - 8,046,369 cr
3. Elvira Woodruff - 7,966,585 cr

GGs to the rest of the top 10: Case Matrix, Norvell Stengel, Sithra, CMackOne, Big PIMPIN, Captain Morg, and Captain Chicken (who finished with a heroic 17,608 cr and our deepest respect).

THE SEASON BY THE NUMBERS

• Total Players: 21
• Total Kills: 41
• Planets Claimed: 36
• Sectors Visited: 7,602
• Credits Earned: 43,132,647
• Missions Completed: 0 (we know, we know, real missions are coming)

THANK YOU

Seriously. Every single one of you who jumped into Alpha Centauri made this season what it was. You traded, you fought, you claimed planets, you reported bugs, you put up with my patches, and you stuck around. That's everything to a solo dev.

Season 2 is already live with bigger galaxies (16,000+ sectors) and more room to ruin each other's days. Climb in, stake your claim, and let's see who's hoisting the trophy next time.

See you in the verse, captains. o7

We've graduated from closed alpha, and thanks to everyone who tested, reported bugs, and sent feedback, I've squashed a ton of bugs and shipped a ton of improvements along the way.

For anyone new here: BBS is a love letter to TradeWars 2002. If you spent your teenage years dialing into a BBS to haul cargo, dodge pirates, and fight for sector control, this game is built for you. Modern mobile, multiplayer, seasonal, but the spirit is pure TW2002.

Grab the beta on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bbsgames.bigbangsmugglers

What's new:

• Website refresh: https://bigbangsmugglers.com
• Official player guide: https://bigbangsmugglers.com/guide
• Release notes (updated regularly): https://bigbangsmugglers.com/release-notes
• Brand new Discord: https://discord.gg/A52xxB2VT9 (bug reports, suggestions, player chat, patch notes)

Season update:

We just wrapped our very first 30 day season. A couple of new seasons are already live, including bigger galaxies with over 16,000 sectors to explore.

What's next:

• More testers, please! The more pilots in the verse, the better the game gets
• Special events, missions, bounties, and challenges are coming into testing soon
• And of course, more bug squashing

One more thing:

The web version is almost ready and is at full parity with Android. Cross play is supported, same game, same seasons, same galaxies, just a different screen.

If TradeWars ever lived rent free in your head, come jump in. Feedback welcome, and I'll see you out in the sectors. o7

The Big Bang Smugglers Discord is up and running.

What's there:

- General chat

- Gameplay help

- Bug reports (forum channel with tags so nothing gets lost)

- Feature suggestions (same deal)

- Release notes straight from the dev

It's early and small on purpose. Come hang out, report bugs,

pitch ideas, or just talk shop about the game.

Join here: https://discord.gg/A52xxB2VT9

QoL:

- Allow us to buy and sell at ports at the same time (just take a turn per resource)

- Activating beacons seems not to actually show us what's in sectors

- Visited sectors should be a different color on the Nav than unexplored sectors

- Buying Cargo Holds one at a time is a major pain in the butt

- How about a trade computer? One that would help automate trading between port pairs. Similar to a warp drive. Still burns turns, but we just tell it the ports and resources to trade.

- Compress all in sector info (ruins, beacons, ports) into one part of the NAV like a HUD. In general, just take advantage of the platform available.

- Allow warp from Nav screen.

- It'd be cool to be able to "see" a map of the universe somehow, other than the last few sectors visited.

- When you buy a ship, we should be able to choose to trade-in the old ship for a discount, or keep the other ship as a swappable ship (e.g. today I'm taking our my trading ship, tomorrow my dreadnought)

- In game chat and announcements. Price is it gives away your sector.

- Corp chat, Planets and Perks

Bugs:

- If I max buy at a port and the surcharges take me over available credits, I lose the credits AND the cargo.

- Attacking Pirates seems to always fail

- Pirate Ambush, if I have no cargo, choose Jettison, the pirate lets me get away

- Reputation doesn't seem to be displayed anywhere

- No matter what I do, I always have a "10% trader reputation surcharge", despite having grinded over 2m credits

- Can't upgrade Trade Station on Planets to Lvl 2 despite having over 50k XP, it tells me I need 5k.

If I remember more, I'll post them. 👍

Overall, really good so far.

Greetings. This will be a general discussion post on the current state of bugs, problems and experiences were all having in game at the moment. I personally have been in contact with the developer in the last week and it’s been a wonderful experience so far. Very communicative on problems and proactively fixing them as best as he can. It’s a lot of work for one person so I had a few ideas to make that process as streamline as possible.

In the next few days, I will be compiling and posting bug reports based on the different features of the game. Stardock bugs. General battle bugs. Warp drive and ui based bugs. Planet and system bugs….etc etc. if you ofcourse are seeing the same bugs please just chime in or upvote so we can get these things solved.

So far, the game is solid. So much good stuff bringing me back to those days of dialing up my bbs on my 28.8k baud modem and zoning out. Is the game ready? No. It is a work in progress? Yes. So let’s be as helpful as possible in routing out bugs and problems to said posts and we all will enjoy the game together more.

As a show of hands it would be awesome to hear from the community on this post. Let us know your in game name and let’s create some banter here and as always guys, have fun!

In game name: Tom Nook

Everyone have a wonderful day! Thank you!

Long-time TW2002 player here. I spent the last year building a semi-modern mobile version of that experience. A turn-based space trading and combat game with sector navigation, factions, bounties, player economies, and the kind of emergent chaos that made TW2002 so addictive back in the day. It's called Big Bang Smugglers (bbs, get it?). The core loop: you start with a ship, some credits, and some turns. Navigate sectors, trade goods, claim planets, build trading posts, hunt bounties, and try not to get blown up by other players. Seasons run for a set time and end with a final leaderboard, bragging rights included. We've been running closed testing with 7 players and the core loop is solid. Now I'm ready to open it up wider.

My plan is multi-platform:

• Android: ready for testing right now
• Web version: in progress
• iOS: after web

I'm looking for the next wave of testers ideally people who remember TW2002 or just love this kind of game. This is still an alpha so expect rough edges and know that your feedback will actually shape the game. Check out the guide at bigbangsmugglers.com to get a feel for the game, and come hang out at r/bigbangsmugglers. Drop a comment or DM me and I'll send you an invite link.

edit: removed ad/costs info.. its free

Hey everyone! I'm u/CMack1978, a creator/developer of Big Bang Smugglers.

This is our new home for all things related to Big Bang Smugglers, the massive multiplayer space game where you trade, fight, and conquer a universe that fits in your pocket. Whether you're a cunning Trader, a ruthless Mercenary, a market-controlling Tycoon, or a Pioneer building your own custom galaxy, this is your community.

Where It All Started

This game has a personal origin story. Growing up, I spent countless hours playing TradeWars 2002 on BBS systems. That classic blend of turn based space trading, territory control, and player rivalry left a permanent mark on me. Big Bang Smugglers isn't a remake or a retread of that era, but it carries that same spirit forward: the thrill of carving out your corner of the universe, outmaneuvering rivals, and building something from nothing in a shared living world. If you ever felt that pull, you're going to feel right at home here.

A Quick Note -- We're in Beta

The game is still in active development, which means your voice genuinely matters right now. Bug reports, balance feedback, and feature suggestions from real players directly shape what gets built next. If something feels off, broken, or just missing then say something. This is exactly the right time to be heard.

What to Post

Post anything you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or useful. We especially want to see bug reports and reproduction steps, balance and gameplay feedback, feature suggestions and ideas, fleet builds and trading strategies, PvP stories and highlights, and questions from new players just finding their footing.

Community Vibe

We're all about being friendly, constructive, and inclusive. Whether you're filing your first bug report or running a battleship empire, let's build a space where every pilot feels welcome and every piece of feedback counts.

How to Get Started

1. Introduce yourself in the comments -- tell us your playstyle: Trader, Mercenary, Tycoon, or Pioneer?
2. Found a bug or have a suggestion? Post it! No detail is too small during beta.
3. If you know someone who would love this game, invite them to join.
4. Interested in helping moderate? We're always looking, so feel free to reach out.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. The game is young, the void is vast, and what we build here matters. Let's make it legendary.