Getting Started

Accurate as of v1.22.0 (July 2026).

Welcome to Big Bang Smugglers. This guide covers everything you need to get through your first session and start earning.

Get the Game & Sign In

Big Bang Smugglers is playable two ways:

• Android: download from Google Play
• Web: play in your browser at play.bigbangsmugglers.com — sign-up is open, no invite code needed

Create an account with email and password (you’ll need to verify your email before playing) or sign in with Google. Pick a captain name — 3 to 20 characters, letters, numbers, and spaces.

There’s no faction to choose and no character to build. You start as a Neutral captain, and your faction alignment shifts through what you do: missions, combat, smuggling busts, and territorial plays move it toward Federation or Pirate. Ordinary port trading shifts neither score. Your separate trader reputation — which affects prices everywhere — moves through dealings with NPC traders you meet in space, not through port trades. See Reputation & Factions for how the two scores work.

Join a Season

Big Bang Smugglers is played in seasons. Each season is a time-limited galaxy that its players compete in together, and you can be in one season at a time.

To join: open the Settings tab, find the Season Management card, tap Browse Seasons, and join an available season. Seasons hold up to 25 players by default.

One warning before you ever tap Leave Current Season: leaving is permanent. You can never rejoin a season you’ve left, and leaving zeroes your credits and turns for that season.

Once you join, you start with:

• 5,000 credits in your wallet (bank empty)
• 250 turns (refreshed every 4 hours — see Turns below)
• Neutral alignment
• Your ship in Sector 0 — the exact center of the galaxy and home of the Federation starport

Your Starter Ship

Your first ship is the SS Starter, a stripped-down starter hull. It can haul a small load of cargo, but it has no weapons and won’t survive a real fight.

Here’s the classic first decision: the Frontier Scout at the starport’s ship sales terminal costs exactly 5,000 cr — your entire starting bankroll — and it’s strictly better: 40 holds (double), 150 shields, actual fighters and torpedoes, and a 50% escape chance. Spend everything on a real ship and trade your way back up, or keep the credits as trading capital and upgrade later. Either works; the Scout pays for itself quickly.

The Nav Screen

You start in Sector 0, the safest spot in the galaxy. The Nav screen is where you’ll spend most of your time: your current sector, its ports, planets, and other points of interest, plus the neighboring sectors you can move to.

Each move to an adjacent sector costs 1 turn. One quirk to know: the adjacent-sector list on the Nav screen is titled “Warp to,” but tapping a neighbor there is an ordinary 1-turn move — actual warp drive jumps come later (see Gameplay Basics).

Make Your First Trade

Find a port. From the Nav screen, tap a Port in your current sector or move to one nearby, then open Trading.

Know the goods. There are three commodities:

• Fuel — 1 hold per unit, typically 60–130 cr
• Organics — 1 hold per unit, typically 60–200 cr
• Equipment — 2 holds per unit, typically 200–700 cr

Prices are fixed per port type and identical in every galaxy — the game is buying at a port type that sells a commodity cheap and hauling it to a port type that pays more. Every buy or sell transaction costs 1 turn, and each leg loses roughly 3% to taxes and fees.

A proven first route: buy organics at an Agricultural Station for about 60 cr, then sell them at a Mining Station for about 180 cr. With your 20 starter holds:

• Buy 20 organics at 60 cr = 1,200 cr, plus fees ≈ 1,236 cr spent
• Sell 20 at 180 cr = 3,600 cr, minus fees ≈ 3,492 cr received
• Profit: about 2,250 cr on one hop — nearly half your starting bankroll

The full price table for every port type is in Trading & Economy.

Turns

You get 250 turns per cycle. Turns reset at fixed 4-hour UTC boundaries — 00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00 UTC — not once a day. The header bar shows a live countdown to the next reset. Unused turns don’t carry over.

What costs turns:

• Moving one sector: 1 turn
• Every trade transaction (each buy, each sell): 1 turn
• Attacking: 1 turn
• Warping (once you have a warp drive): turns based on distance

What’s free: banking, browsing ports, buying ships and upgrades, and accepting missions.

When you hit 0 turns you cannot move, fight, or trade. You can still bank credits, browse, and use port services that don’t consume turns. Two more things worth knowing:

• Agricultural Stations sell provisions that restore turns at 800 cr each, up to 5 per purchase — the main way to regain turns mid-cycle (a lucky anomaly landmark can also grant a few).
• Spending your last turn on a move banks a day toward your turn streak (reward milestones at 3, 7, 14, and 30 days). Only a move counts — a trade or fight as your last action doesn’t. The in-app streak display currently has a known bug, but the days are recorded.

What to Do First

1. Use the starport under your feet. You spawn at the Federation starport in Sector 0 — banking, ship sales, the shipyard, missions, and more are all right there. No need to go find one.
2. Decide on the Frontier Scout. 5,000 cr for double the holds and real survivability is the best early purchase in the game.
3. Explore nearby sectors. You must visit a sector before you can warp to it later, and first visits award bonus XP.
4. Find a trade route. Look for an Agricultural Station and a Mining Station within a few sectors of each other and run organics between them.
5. Bank your profits. Credits in the bank can’t be looted in combat. Deposit before you log off.

Next Steps

• Gameplay Basics covers movement, warp travel, ship roles, repair, and factions
• Trading & Economy covers the full price table and how to maximize profit per run
• Ships covers the full 30-ship catalog and when to upgrade
• Galaxy & Territory explains regions, territories, and where it’s safe to fly