Releases on Big Bang Smugglers

v2.10.1 — Forgot password + Android 15 insets

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 11:49:00 +0000

Forgot password? on the sign-in screen: enter your email and get a reset link. Reset emails now come from noreply@bigbangsmugglers.com.
Android: screens, pop-ups and toasts now stay clear of the notch and navigation bar on Android 15.
Shipyards: hulls are bought and swapped only at Stardocks, Pirate Havens and Exchanges, matching what the app has always shown.
Behind the scenes: unused catalog prices removed.

v2.10.0 — Dominion

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Dominion arrives as a preview, and next season’s rules are locked in. Update the Android app from Google Play to see the Dominion boards.

Dominion (preview)

What is Dominion? Dominion measures how much of the galaxy you actually control. XP shows how hard you’ve played and credits show how rich you are. Dominion rewards holding ground: ports you’ve taken, planets you’ve built up, starbases you’ve raised. It builds up over time, so an empire held for weeks outscores a quick grab. Corps score together, so a corp that holds territory as a team can top the board without the richest captain.

v2.9.0 — The Long Arc

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Something to chase past level 100, and things worth spending a fortune on. Update the Android app from Google Play to get the new screens.

Legend ranks unlock real things

Every 100,000 XP past level 100 is a Legend rank, and now they open content:
- Legend 5: Tier 7 hulls.
- Legend 10: planet structures at level 8.
- Legend 20: the rarest luxury stock.
- Legend 40: an exclusive title (Eternal Guardian, Legend Eternal, or Undying Scourge) and the epithet the Ascendant.
Your Captain’s Log shows the Legend ladder once you’re close.

Bigger ships

Tier 6 and Tier 7 hulls on every line: T6 from level 85 (625k, about 480 holds), T7 from Legend 5 (1.5M, about 720 holds). The neutral line stays 10% cheaper, and Federation hulls keep their extra shields.
Epic hulls grow with you. Your epic becomes Tier 6 at level 85 and Tier 7 at Legend 5, and keeps its signature ability. Upgrades you’ve bought carry over.
Writ of the Council fixed and boosted: correct shields, a stronger sensor edge, and +10% defence. Cartographer’s Dream now scans one ring further.
Lost your epic? Re-commission it for 250k, once per season.

Bigger planets

Structure levels 6–8: level 6 at captain level 80, level 7 at level 100, and level 8 at Legend 10. Starbase requirements are unchanged.

Luxuries

Full-Hold Cloak (25M, black market): customs scans find nothing in your hold for 24 hours.
Forged Credentials (50M, black market): dock at one Stardock for 7 days, whatever your reputation. A live warrant still gets you arrested.
Starbase Hull-Swap Bay (40M, Stardock): switch hulls at your own starbase and take your cargo with you.
Second Module Slot (100M, Stardock, Legend 20): fit a second Cargo Compressors or Shield Booster.
Longer cloaks: 8 hours for 15k and 24 hours for 60k, alongside the 2-hour cloak. StarNav 4 still sees through all of them.

Bank bonds

Lock credits in a 7-day bond and earn up to 2%. Bonds are paid from a pool fed by fees and fines across the galaxy, never created from nothing. Cashing in early costs 1% and forfeits the yield.

v2.8.0 — Ports & Planets Pay

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000

The second wave of the economy changes. Ports are worth holding, planets show what they earn, and the outlaw life gets a way back. Update the Android app from Google Play to get the new screens.

Ports

Held ports pay. A port your corp holds now earns a protection levy every 4 hours, and its upkeep is lower, so a held port makes money even when nobody trades there.
You can take a port solo. Neutral garrisons regrow 10% per cycle instead of resetting fully every 4 hours, so a lone captain can wear one down over a day. A one-member corp can hold one port.
Sieges pay properly. Winning a siege pays in proportion to the port’s size, and razing pays more. A razed port can’t be razed again for 7 days.
Fortify your ports. Holders can buy extra garrison fighters.
Lawful stakes. Lawful captains can buy a stake in a port (5% of its stock value) and earn a share of its levy, with up to 4 stakeholders per port. Pirates who capture or raze the port wipe the stakes out.
Port P&L. The port screen shows the holder’s levy, upkeep, tax income and net per day.

Planets

Export pays on what you store. The export dividend rises from 30 to 45 per unit, but only on output that lands in storage. A full warehouse stops paying, so haul it, sell it, or expand.
Trading posts sell to the port in their own sector at that port’s live price. Half the till banks itself every cycle.
Citadels now add 15% production per level, up from 10%.
Barracks make torpedoes. Load them, and spare garrison fighters, onto your landed ship.
Payback on every button: each build shows what it adds per day and how long it takes to pay for itself.

Outlaws & bounties

Heat cools off. Faction heat now halves every 3 days with no new offence. Warrants shrink with it and lapse at zero. A faction only shoots on sight while your heat is above 2.
Deep-Federation runs pay more: contraband sold deep in Federation space now earns up to 2× the outer-rim rate, with the matching risk.

Mines

Mines bite. A big minefield now triggers up to 10 mines per entry instead of 3. Starter ships get a one-time survival floor.
Recover your own mines, and Patrol-line hulls (T3+) can sweep hostile fields with torpedoes.

Ships & prices

Upgrades are cheaper: maxing out a starter ship costs about 81k instead of 119k.
Neutral hulls cost 10% less than faction hulls.
Provisions get pricier as you buy: up to 20 per refill cycle, with each one costing more than the last, as a luxury on top of your turn bank.
Missions: 6 rotating missions a day, with credit rewards that scale with your level.

While you were gone

The away summary now shows turns banked, planet income, a full-storage warning, port levy and stake dividends, alerts, heat cooling and expiring missions.

v2.7.0 — The Turns Update

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 19:00:00 +0000

The first wave of the economy changes we asked you about on Discord. Everything below is live now; update the Android app from Google Play (2.7.0) to get the new screens.

Turns

Turns bank now. You still get +250 every 4 hours, but unused turns no longer vanish at the next refill. They carry over, up to 1,000.
Log in once a day and you’ll find up to 1,000 turns waiting, four times what a single session got before.
Everyone starts the new system with at least 250 in the bank.
Losing your ship empties your whole turn bank.
Provisions are unchanged: 5 per 4-hour refill.

Smuggling

Smaller contraband loads. Black tech is now 30 per purchase; stolen equipment and illicit organics are 50. Smuggling still pays more than honest trading, just not four times more.
Fences buy back below their price. Buying at a fence and selling straight back now loses money. Fences are the safe place to dump hot cargo; the profit is in the risky sales at ports.

Trading

Federation, pirate and black-market ports now feel your volume like every other port. Hammer one route and its prices move; leave it alone and they recover.

Planets

Faster start. New claims begin with 150 colonists and grow faster, filling up in about 5 days instead of 10.
Habitats finally pay. Higher habitat levels used to lower output. Now every level raises it, by up to about 49% at level 5.
Planet locations are secret. Claim and capture stories no longer say which sector. You find planets by flying there.

Ships

Trade in your old hull when you buy a new one, for 64% of its value, and bring your drives along for a 10% refit fee. You can still choose to keep the old hull.

Hunting & intel

Sensor buoys finally work. A deployed buoy alerts you when a ship enters its sector.
Port informants. Pay a port to tell you who comes through.
Last seen. The Wanted board shows roughly where each target was last spotted.
Sector peek. One tap on Nav shows what’s next door.

Your captain

Rank titles all the way to level 100, on three tracks by alignment: lawful, neutral and outlaw. Yes, there’s an Evil Scourge.
A badge every 10 levels.
Legend ranks past level 100.
Iron Will can now be earned; your longest streak is finally tracked.

New players

You start on the Nav screen.
A Captain’s Log shows your next unlocks and how far away they are.
A first-trade card plans a profitable run near you.
The Getting Started checklist actually completes.

Bounties

The Wanted card shows the details: your heat, what the next offence would cost, whether that faction shoots on sight, and where to settle. Thanks to everyone who answered on Discord, especially SauceLord Dulak, Lucifer, Ddg67FC1 and Jrodius, whose replies shaped this update.

v2.6.0 — Bounties, corps and favorites

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 19:30:00 +0000

Seven fixes from your Discord reports, plus one new feature.

Bounties & immunity

Settle a warrant even if the capital won’t dock you. Captains on the wrong side of a faction could never reach its bounty registry, so the bounty, and that faction attacking on sight, never went away. You can now always come in to settle that faction’s warrant. Every other service still refuses you.
Paying off a bounty clears your record. Your next offence starts a fresh bounty instead of jumping straight back to the full amount.
The bounty board says where to pay: the Federation Stardock or the Pirate Haven, not a “contract office”.
Void a defense contract any time. Immunity also stops you from attacking or laying mines, so you can now end it early from Nav or the defense contract screen. There’s no refund.
Your immunity shows on Nav, with the time it ends, and it survives an app restart.

Corporations

Leaders and officers can withdraw from corp planet storage, whatever the member policy says.
The corp policy panel has every switch: corp bank, planet deposit, planet withdraw and planet building. Officers can use it too.
Any corp member can staff a corp planet’s garrison with Security Personnel. Taking fighters back out needs rank or the building permission.

Combat & planets

Landing protects you, not your attacks. Attacking, sieging, planting limpets or deploying ordnance while landed now launches you first. Laying mines from your planet’s garrison still works while landed.
Nav shows when you’re landed, with a Launch button.
An escape reads as an escape. “You lost to…” and “you fought them off” were wrong for a fight where the defender slipped away.

Tag your favorite sectors. Give a starred sector a tag like “fuel stop” or “hideout”, then filter your Favorites and the Explored Sectors browser by tag.

Thanks to Lucifer, Ddg67FC1 and Jrodius for the reports.

v2.5.3 — Toolbar and badge fixes

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 23:05:00 +0000

Fixes for three reports from the 2.5.2 rollout.

Interface

The bottom tab bar is whole again. On some Android phones, closing the keyboard left half the tab bar pushed off the bottom of the screen. While you type, the tab bar now hides and the screen rises with the keyboard. When the keyboard closes, the tab bar comes back.
Planet raid results. When a planet raid was repelled, the result pop-up cut its Close button in half. It now shows in full.

Comms

The Corp badge clears. Corp messages sent while the app was in the background could leave a red badge that reading the channel never cleared, and those messages were missing from the chat. Opening Corp chat, or coming back to the app, now loads anything you missed and clears the badge.

v2.5.2 — Keyboard fixes

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:52:00 +0000

Every text input now clears the keyboard.

Interface

Text boxes stay above the keyboard everywhere. Trade and bank amounts, bounty postings, ship and planet names, sector notes, galaxy posts, corp chat, hails, and the confirmation fields in pop-ups all sat under the Android keyboard. They now rise with it, on every screen and in every pop-up.
Chat composers, done properly this time. The v2.5.1 fix for Hails and corp chat under-corrected by the height of the header. The avoider now measures its real position on screen.

v2.5.1 — Comms fixes

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 15:10:00 +0000

Comms fixes from launch night.

Comms

Composers stay above the keyboard on Android. In Hails and Corp chat the message box was covered once the keyboard opened. Both now rise with it.
The Hail search box is usable. It was small and sat under the keyboard. It now opens at the top of the screen with a full-size input.
Channel chips no longer wrap. At larger text sizes “Leaderboards” broke onto a second line. The row now scrolls sideways when it needs to.
Unread counts clear when you read. Corp chat could keep a count of 1 after you’d read everything. Reading now clears it and it stays clear.

v2.5.0 — Comms

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 01:00:00 +0000

The Feed tab is now Comms, and captains can finally talk.

Comms

One tab for every conversation. Feed is now Comms, with channels inside it: Galaxy, Corp, Hails, and Leaderboards. Unread counts sit on each channel and a dot on the tab. They’re stored on the server, so they survive a reinstall and agree across devices.
Your dispatches live in Galaxy. Customs seizures, attacks on you, bounties, limpets, and robberies now sit in the Galaxy timeline with a dot until you’ve seen them. World events never badge.
Missions moved to the Ship tab, leftmost. Past Seasons is now a season selector on Leaderboards.

Galaxy posts

Posting to the galaxy is free. The paid announcement is gone. Anyone at level 5 can post up to 280 characters straight from the Galaxy channel.
Mentions. Write @captain or @corp and the name lights up. Whoever you named gets an “@ you” chip and a badge until they open Comms. A corp mention reaches every member. Up to five names per post.

Hails

Direct chat between captains. Open Hails, tap Hail, find a captain by name, and talk. Text only, one thread per pair per season, level 5 to start a thread, nothing to reply.
Block. From any thread header. That captain’s hails and galaxy posts stop reaching you, in both directions. They’re not told.

Corporation chat

A real channel. Pinned to the newest message, pull up for older history, the notice pinned at the top with an edit for officers, a green dot on crewmates who are online, and “N of M online” in the header. Joins, leaves, and discharges show inline.
Messages land instantly instead of a couple of seconds later.

Fair play

One spam gate for every chat surface: 3 messages per 10 seconds and 30 per 10 minutes, counted across corp chat, galaxy posts, and hails together. Go over and the game tells you how many seconds to wait. Links are blocked everywhere.
Reports and moderation. Report any post with the flag, or any hail or corp message with a long press. Three reports hide a message automatically. Moderators can hide, restore, and silence a captain on every surface for an hour, a day, a week, or the season. Reading is never silenced.

Under the hood

Old feed rows now age out after 30 days, except critical, season, and operator posts, and pinned items.
Deleted or hidden messages vanish from connected clients immediately.
The app opens one live connection instead of five.
Console access is now role-based, and captain and corp names are screened on the way in, not just on rename.

v2.4.0 — Fixes From the Discord

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Every fix in this release started as a player report. Thanks to SauceLord Dulak and the plague for the clear write-ups.

Smuggling

Hidden compartments now protect your sales. Ships with hidden compartments used to hide cargo only from patrol scans; the risk of getting caught at a street sale was the same as any other hull. That risk is now cut by the compartment percentage. On The Phantom Manifest it drops 60%, so a Fed core sale goes from 22% to about 9%. The sell screen shows your real number.

Boosters

XP and Credit boosters now work. They only ever counted on mission rewards. XP boosters now apply to every source of experience. Credit boosters add 25% on top of your profit from trade and smuggling sales, and on loot, bounties, landmark caches, and mission, goal and streak rewards. They don’t apply to credits taken from other players.

Planets

Withdrawals use your real cargo capacity. Cargo compressors and hull cargo bonuses now count when pulling goods from planet storage, and the withdraw screen has a Max button.

Corporations

Accepting an invite actually joins you. Invites now work on every corporation, not just invite-only ones. Inviting a captain who has already asked to join approves them on the spot, and your membership shows immediately without signing out.
Declined requests say so. If a leader turns down your request, the corp list shows Declined instead of a permanent Pending, and Check Status no longer quietly files a new request.
Leaders now see new join requests as they arrive.

Interface

Long profiles can be closed again. Captain profiles opened from the leaderboard grew taller than the screen as honors piled up, and on web the Close button was unreachable. Every pop-up is now capped to the screen, scrolls inside, and keeps Close in view. Tapping outside or pressing back closes the ones that allow it.

Website

Live season standings. bigbangsmugglers.com now shows the current season’s status and standings, refreshed every four hours.

Under the hood

Cargo volume rules now come from the server in one place.
Housekeeping on the agent tooling in the repo.

v2.3.0 — You Asked, We Built It

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Most of this release came straight from the Discord. Thank you to everyone who reported, tested and argued about it.

Planets

Auto-collect. Each production cycle’s output now goes straight into your planet’s storage, up to its cap. No more flying around every cycle to press Collect. If a planet’s storage fills up, the planet screen and your “while you were away” summary tell you so.
Planet XP. Building structures now earns experience. The amount scales with the structure and the level you reach: a level-1 warehouse pays 60 XP, and a level-5 citadel pays 900. Colonizing pays 1 XP per worker.
Fixed: missions that asked you to upgrade a planet could never complete.
Fixed: leaving a season now releases your planets for others to claim.
Fixed: collecting right after a cycle boundary could skip a cycle’s production.

Mines

Each captain can now deploy up to 500 mines across the galaxy, up from 50.
Sectors where you own a planet allow 50 extra.

Smuggling rebalance

Market-priced contraband. Black Market prices now follow the local market instead of a flat rate. Selling back to the same fence earns a modest, safe profit. The big money is still in lawful space, at real risk.
100 per purchase. You can buy up to 100 units of any contraband type in one purchase.
Hidden compartments stay hidden. When a patrol catches you over your hidden allowance, it now takes only the overflow. The fine is based on what that cargo cost you.
NPC traders now charge more than a Black Market for contraband, never less.

Alignment

Jettison workers is live. Dump mining workers from your hold for −10 alignment each. It’s the fast road toward the pirate side.

Combat

Defenders loot. Beat someone who attacked you and you take a cut of their wallet. Banked credits stay safe.
Bounties pay both ways. If a wanted captain attacks you and loses, you collect their bounty.
No self-sieges. Corps can’t siege their own ports.
No sieges under immunity. Captains under immunity can’t siege ports or plant limpets.
Cloaks break when you act. Sieges, raids, Black Market deals, banking and ship purchases now drop your cloak.
Fixed: equipped hull plating was increasing hull damage instead of reducing it.
Fixed: mines could hit your replacement ship right after a fatal ambush.

Warps charge their full cost up front. If you’re stopped partway, the turns for the hops you didn’t fly come back.
Fixed: warp interrupts with no contact.
Fixed: arriving hidden after a wormhole jump while landed on a planet.
Warp exploration now counts toward missions and goals.

Fixes you reported

Corp bank. Deposits and withdrawals now show up instantly for the whole crew.
Tavern intel. Results no longer run off the screen.
Buying a ship. Hulls with bonus cargo space no longer destroy cargo that would have fit.
Prices you’re shown now match what you’re charged, including StarNav and drive faction discounts, trade fees, and the port price board.
Screens now show real numbers. Wormhole destinations are real, ambush recaps no longer invent “50% even odds”, and planet production rates are correct.
Corps. Rosters update live, and you no longer appear offline while connected.

Under the hood

Security hardening around docking and port services.
Console improvements: bulk bans, and version updates from the Broadcast desk.
Cleanup: idle, never-played seats now free themselves.
Many smaller consistency and race-condition fixes.

v2.2.1 — Bug Sweep

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 18:00:00 +0000

A bug sweep from captain field reports.

Combat & missions

Defeating an NPC that ambushed you — mid-move or mid-warp — now counts toward mission objectives and goal ladders (Scourge of Pirates, Terror of the Lanes). Previously only fights you initiated counted, even though the kill showed in your stats.
Made of Money now progresses: bank deposits were never counted toward the goal, for anyone.

Ship & inventory

Supply shop purchases (Sentry Drones, mines, turrets, buoys, cloak fields) appear on the Ship screen’s Ordnance card immediately.
Recalling your own nav beacon returns it to inventory, as the confirmation promised. Destroying someone else’s still grants nothing.

The Nav tab lists every ship in your sector, including offline captains (shown dimmed, still targetable) — it now agrees with sector scans and StarNav counts.

Stats & leaderboards

The Settings player stats card shows real season numbers — K/D, missions, goals, bounties, trades — instead of zeros.
Planets claimed, distance traveled, and streak milestones are now tracked, count toward lifetime career totals, and the planets season award is winnable for the first time.
Overall leaderboard scores are labeled with XP and credits.

Counting starts from this release — earlier kills and deposits show in your stats but predate the counters.

v2.2.0 — The Premium Market Opens

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 18:00:00 +0000

The smuggling career gets its missing half, and a rare cosmic dead end gets repaired.

Smuggling — the premium market opens

Contraband can finally be sold the way the career was designed:

Hot Cargo — at any port outside a fence sector, sell contraband at street premium. The trade screen quotes the real price per unit and the region’s customs detection risk before you commit; get caught and the goods are seized plus a fine.
Fence it flat — Black Market ports now have sell cards with real quoted prices. Flat rate, no scan, no questions.
Fixed: contraband cargo volume was counted wrong outside the black market, so your holds could read “free” while buys said “full.” Hold math is now honest everywhere — ship screen, trading, loot, and planet transfers.

Combat

The battle result screen now shows the real numbers: both ships’ fighters, shields, and torpedoes, each side’s losses, and combat power — for PvP and NPC fights alike. No more rows of zeros.

v2.1.0 — Out of Beta

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Everything shipped since v2.0.9 — a launch-month cleanup rolled into one release.

Out of beta

The beta labels are gone, the app store link points where it should, and the game now has a proper credits screen. Thanks for flying with us this far.

Combat & mines

Minefields now name the captain who laid them — in the moment, and in the feed.
Mine strikes are reported as attacks, not bad weather.
Escape pods work the way you’d expect: a pod is a respawn, defending yourself earns the protection it should, and post-battle immunity actually covers everything it claims to.
A rare double-report on NPC kills and a bounty-payout accounting bug are fixed.

Ports & trading

The Port and Starport screens are now one Station Directory — one dock, one door.
Bounty offices live at the faction capitals, where they belong.
Per-transaction purchase caps are gone.
Planet trading posts got a real storefront, and your cargo’s cost basis follows it properly through storage and sales.

Quality of life

Victims of an attack are told about it.
Filter chips wrap instead of scrolling.
Sector headcounts count the captains you can actually see.
Admin announcements can now reach you in-game as a toast.

Seasons ahead

Groundwork shipped for seasons of any length — sprints to marathons — each tuned so progression fits its span. Current galaxies are unchanged; you’ll see this in action when the next season begins.

v2.0.9 — Retinues and Trader Encounters

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Changelog for v2.0.9.

Tavern retinues

Taverns at stardocks and pirate havens hire retinues on contract. Three tiers, each raising your combat power against NPCs.
Wages are drawn from your wallet every cycle. Miss a payment or lose a fight and the retinue deserts. Contracts run 48 hours maximum.
Federation Auxiliary and Cutthroat Company are available at opposite ends of the standing range.
Retinues apply against NPCs only. Player-versus-player combat and planet sieges are unaffected.

NPC trader encounters

Merchant ships encountered in space can be traded with: three deals each, priced against the live market anchors.
Traders deeper toward the rim may carry contraband, available above level 3.
Traders can also be robbed. Yield chance is derived from the same combat model as a real fight; resistance means a real fight.
Robbery costs alignment and guild standing, raises pirate standing, and in lawful space accumulates Federation heat until patrols engage on sight.
Two named merchant princes added to the galaxy roster.

Planetary minelaying

Planet owners with barracks can convert garrison fighters into mines in the planet’s own sector.
The mines are ordinary mines: they trigger on entry, decay, spare corp-mates, and can be destroyed.
Conversion is one-way, and the fighters spent are no longer available for siege defense.

Corp banners

Corporations can carry a Federation, Independent or Pirate banner, with membership tolerance, leader-set changes, and port-holding restricted by faction.
Disabled this season; enables at a season boundary.

Fixes

The Tesseract drive required level 100 while the season maximum is 50, making it unobtainable. It now requires level 40, matching its progression gate.
Internal: migration ordering guard.

Android: version 2.0.9 is live on Google Play. Web players are already on it.

v2.0.8 — Standing Restored

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Changelog for v2.0.8.

Standing

Clean customs scans now award standing, with an on-screen confirmation.
Daily, seasonal and ad-hoc missions carry standing rewards (lawful positive, underworld negative).
Surviving a pirate ambush awards defensive standing.
Warp arrivals surface patrol inspections; previously the contact expired unused.

World tick

The four-hour cycle ran twice per boundary. Port upkeep, delinquency accrual and market restock were applied twice each cycle; now applied once. The backup trigger remains in place.

Trading and ships

Cargo could not be sold while carrying contraband of the same commodity.
Ship capacity upgrades (holds, shields, fighters, torpedoes) were unreachable from the starport.
Hull repair was unavailable when shields were full; repair results now report actual restoration.
Ship rename reported failure on success.
Restock, rename and upgrade prices now come from the server catalog.
Repairs no longer refill fighters and torpedoes; munitions come from restock.

Planets and stations

Planet ownership checks failed for all owners; owner-only features were unreachable.
Garrison staffing, starbase construction and trading posts were not connected to the current backend.
Trading post income was accruing with no way to collect it.
Planet rename and corp-internal deed transfer added.

Combat

Defense contracts no longer permit attacking while protected.
A lost fleet strike no longer overwrites a purchased contract.
Fleet kills apply the same alignment, statistics and immunity consequences as solo kills.
Respawn protection applies after every death.
Named NPCs retain damage between engagements and regenerate over time.
Losing an engagement no longer awards experience.

Progression

Player level is derived from the season curve at every write path.
Mission completions count toward the missions leaderboard.
Event progress accrues without opening the Events screen.
Maximum-tier scanners reported empty sectors.
Starting sector is marked visited on join.
Provisions charge only for turns delivered; cloaks last a fixed duration.

Other

Economy pricing corrections.
Security hardening across the API and live connections.
Leaderboards no longer expose exact player balances.

Migrations: galaxy tick boundary claims, ban revocation notifications.

v2.0.5 — StarNav Restored

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

A quick follow-up patch, same day.

Your StarNav 2002 works. The long-range sector sweep was stuck at “Scanning…” forever — the display was never connected to the new engine. It now renders the full picture: connected sector routes, territory colors, hostile contact markers, and your own sector at the center of the sweep. Higher StarNav levels reveal more detail at greater range, as intended.
Scan intel is honest: sectors your device can’t fully resolve show as unknown rather than empty.
If a sweep ever fails, you’ll see a retry button — not an eternal spinner.

Fitting that the fix ships the same week StarNav installs themselves were unblocked. The device earns its 100,000 credits now.

v2.0.4 — The Galaxy Comes Alive

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Day two of launch week, and the galaxy just got a lot louder.

The Feed Tells the Story

Until today, the galaxy feed only carried system notices — battles, land grabs, and arrivals were happening all around you, invisibly. No more:

Battle reports. Every PvP engagement now posts publicly — “X destroyed Y in sector N,” or drove them off, or watched them run. The ⚔️ combat lane from v1 is back.
Ship commissionings. When a captain commissions a tier-3+ hull, the galaxy hears about it.
Land and war. Planet claims, port captures, and ports shaking off their occupiers all post publicly now — several of these were being written with your name on them and delivered to no one.
New captains and season honors appear for everyone, and feed entries carry proper categories again.

Every Ship Is Now Its Own Ship

A sharp-eyed captain noticed two ship classes with identical stats. The audit found it ran deeper: the Federation line was a stat-for-stat clone of the neutral line. As of today:

v2.0.2 / v2.0.3 — Launch Weekend Fixes

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The first weekend of 2.0 brought real players, and real players find real bugs. Two patches went out in response — thank you to the captains who filed reports. You know who you are, and soon the galaxy will too.

v2.0.2

Defense contracts now mean it. A purchased contract grants full combat immunity for its window — NPC pirate and patrol ambushes are suppressed, not just player attacks. If you bought two hours of peace to trade, you get two hours of peace.
Honest trade numbers. Your cargo now tracks what you actually paid for it (weighted average, taxes and fees included), so sell screens report true profit — including negative profit when you dump at a loss. Fee and tax estimates now come from the live market instead of guesses.
The feed tells the story. Combat outcomes, port and planet captures, arrests at dock, and more now appear with real names and details in the galaxy feed and the “while you were away” recap, instead of generic labels.
Fixed a crash when expanding Recent Sectors, and added an app-wide safety net so a single broken screen can no longer blank the whole app.

v2.0.3

Ship tiers display correctly. Owned ships showed “Tier 1” no matter the hull — and that phantom tier was blocking warp drive installation on tier-2+ ships. Your Tristar Hauler is, and always was, Tier 3; now the game admits it.
Fixed a crash when engaging an enemy from the sector view.
Engage intel is real. Enemy fighters, shields, and torpedoes now show actual values in the engage dialog (win estimates were being computed from zeroed stats).
New: the Hull Whisperer insignia — a season honor granted by the GM to players whose bug reports shaped the season. It burns with the season, like all insignia. Earn it the hard way: break our game and tell us how.

Android: version 2.0.3 is rolling out on Google Play. Web players at play.bigbangsmugglers.com are already on it.

v2.0.0 — Big Bang Smugglers 2.0: A New Universe

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

v2.0.0 is not an update — it’s a re-founding. The entire game has been rebuilt from the engine up, the universe starts fresh, and the game now lives at play.bigbangsmugglers.com.

A Fresh Universe

Big Bang Smugglers 2.0 launches with a clean slate. Everyone — veterans and new captains alike — starts from zero: new accounts, new galaxies, no carried history. The years of v1 seasons are archived with honor, and the new record books open today. Sign up takes seconds with Google or email.

v1.23.0 — Events, Roles, End-game, and New Player Onboarding

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

v1.23.0 is the biggest content release since the game launched. Daily events, role specialization, prestige tiers, a full season end-game, and new-player onboarding are all live. An extensive bug-fix and balance pass ships alongside them — over 80 issues closed.

Daily Events

A live events system now runs inside every galaxy. Daily events generate automatically from a rotating template slate and are visible from the Events board on your Ship screen.

v1.22.0 — Planet Parking, Active Defenses, and Mission Alerts

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

v1.22.0 makes your planets meaningfully harder to crack, adds a full in-app ship catalog, and pushes reminders before your missions expire.

This release also closes several mine-behavior bugs and tightens up combat rules that were leaving gaps in what sector defenses actually covered.

Planet Parking and Citadel Defense

Ships can now land on planets you own. While landed, the full citadel defense stack — shields, garrison fighters, deployed mines — applies before an attacker can reach your hull. Your planet has to fall before your ship does.

v1.21.0 — Tactical Deployables, Defense, and Economy Fixes

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000

v1.21.0 expands tactical options, tightens several combat and defense rules, and removes some stale UI and backend paths that were getting in the way.

This release improves how deployables work in the field, restores clearer upgrade access in port UI, rebalances planet economics, and fixes a cluster of state and defense bugs uncovered after the v1.19.0 and v1.20.0 releases.

Tactical Deployables and Intel

Limpet Trackers are now more usable as an actual intelligence tool instead of a one-off novelty.

v1.20.0 — Limpet Tracker and Deployable Mines

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 18:00:00 +0000

v1.20.0 sharpens the deployable layer and ships a batch of critical fixes from v1.19.0.

The headline is the Limpet Tracker — the first device in the game designed for intelligence gathering rather than direct combat. Proximity mine behavior also closes a long-standing warp loophole, and the Hangar gets a proper home as a visitable location with better trade-in terms.

Limpet Tracker

The Limpet Tracker is a new deployable available for purchase at ports.

v1.19.0 — Fleets, Garages, and Ship Destruction

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000

v1.19.0 is a major systems release focused on making ship ownership, corporation coordination, and combat consequences much deeper.

This update adds ship destruction with escape-pod recovery, multi-ship ownership with garage and Starbase storage, corporation fleets and shared fleet rewards, private corporation chat, Tesseract Drive travel, stronger planet export income, and a long set of combat and interface fixes.

Ship Destruction and Escape-Pod Recovery

Ships can now be destroyed instead of lingering in a repairable zero-state, and depleted defenses warn you before you cross that line.

v1.18.1 — Cinematic Transitions

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 16:55:57 +0000

v1.18.1 finishes what v1.18.0 started: every placeholder in the cut-scene system is now replaced by a purpose-made image.

Cinematic Transitions — Now Complete

19 custom scenes (1024×1536, navy/teal palette) are wired into every major moment in the game: docking at a starport, landing on a planet, entering any store, warping through a system, falling into a wormhole or black hole, winning or losing a fight, buying a new ship, accepting and completing missions, leveling up, joining a corp, and the season-end screen.

v1.18.0 — Planets 2.0

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:13:44 +0000

v1.18.0 is the largest planet update in Big Bang Smugglers history, paired with cinematic travel moments, new combat systems, and improvements across trade, navigation, and corporation management.

Planets 2.0 — Claim, Build, and Defend Your Worlds

Planet development is fundamentally richer in v1.18.0.

The planet economy is now config-driven with up to 2.5× production output, so a well-developed world produces far more than before.

Planets can now be taken by force. The new siege combat module lets you assault rival planets and capture them for your own. On defense, build a Barracks to produce fighters and garrison your planet, then cap it with the Citadel — a high-tier capstone structure that boosts both production and defensive strength.

v1.17.4 — Security & Stability

Tue, 26 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Security updates and stability improvements. Update your app to stay current.

v1.17.2 — Season-End Stability

Fri, 08 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000

v1.17.2 is a stability patch addressing two issues uncovered after the Red Dwarf beta season ended.

Blank Screen on Season End

The app could briefly show a blank screen when launched after a season had closed, then loop back to the recap screen repeatedly. Both issues are resolved; the app now navigates correctly to the season recap on first open.

Post-Season World Cleanup

After a season ends, sectors, ports, planets, and player galaxy links are supposed to be cleared automatically. A missing function registration meant this cleanup job was never deployed and never ran, leaving old world data in place indefinitely. The registration has been corrected; ended seasons will now be fully cleaned up and archived as intended.

v1.17.1 — Toast Notification Fixes

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

v1.17.1 is a small hotfix focused on toast notification dismissal. Toasts can now be cleared on demand instead of lingering on screen until they auto-expire.

Swipe to Dismiss

Toast notifications can now be dismissed immediately with swipe gestures instead of forcing players to wait for them to expire.

Swipe in any direction to clear a toast the moment it appears, so notifications never block your view during gameplay.

Tap to Dismiss

Tap-to-dismiss was also added for faster cleanup when a toast is in the way.

v1.17.0 — StarNav Usability Polish

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 18:46:00 +0000

v1.17.0 focuses on making StarNav 2002 feel more readable, interactive, and trustworthy in day-to-day navigation.

This update tightens the expanded scanner experience, reduces compact-map clutter, and makes upgrade information easier to understand before you spend credits.

Expanded StarNav Is Easier to Use

The expanded StarNav map now stays inside Android safe areas so the map and legend remain visible above the system navigation area.

Sector taps work again in expanded view, and pinch zoom now responds correctly so dense local space is easier to inspect.

v1.16.2 — StarNav 2002 Scanner

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 12:58:00 +0000

v1.16.2 introduces StarNav 2002, a new ship scanner upgrade path, and includes the follow-up improvements needed to make the scanner feel like a real navigation instrument.

Install StarNav 2002 in the TriStar Shipyard, upgrade it across five levels, and use the Nav screen to read nearby sectors with much better clarity.

StarNav 2002 in the TriStar Shipyard

Ships can now install StarNav 2002 as a dedicated upgrade in the TriStar Shipyard.

v1.15.0 — Trading, Repair, and Beacon Travel Fixes

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:59:00 +0000

v1.15.0 improves several of the most common day-to-day actions in Big Bang Smugglers: trading, repairing, navigating, and moving between beacon locations.

This release also clears out a cluster of state-sync issues that were making some screens look wrong even when the underlying game data was correct.

Better Trading Max Calculations

Port trading Max buttons now respect both available hold capacity and current port stock.

That means the buy flow stops overfilling the quantity field with values your ship cannot actually carry.

v1.14.4 -- Combat, Intel, and Sector Stability

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 22:01:00 -0400

v1.14.4 is a bugfix release focused on keeping moment-to-moment sector play cleaner and more predictable.

This update fixes sector traffic clustering, duplicate pirate encounters after wins, overlapping combat result screens, broken Sector Intelligence reveals, missing Federation reputation gains, stat cap mismatches in the shipyard, and missing player and ship detail in sector presence displays.

Sector Traffic Cleanup

Federation patrol ships now distribute correctly instead of crowding into a single sector.

v1.14.3 — Onboarding and Web Invite Access

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:15:00 -0400

v1.14.3 focuses on the first few minutes a new captain spends with Big Bang Smugglers.

This release makes account setup easier to follow, keeps invite-only access in the web onboarding flow, and leaves the mobile experience more direct.

Smoother First-Time Setup

New players now move through account activation in a cleaner order before they enter the galaxy.

That means fewer confusing handoffs during sign-up and a more predictable path from account creation to getting in-game.

v1.14.1 — Security Hardening and Web Launch Prep

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0400

v1.14.1 is a security-focused release that hardens account protection, improves session safety, and lays the groundwork for the upcoming web launch.

Stronger Account and Session Security

This release adds multiple layers of protection to how the game verifies your identity and safeguards your session.

Client connections now use device-level attestation, session storage is more resistant to common browser-based attacks, and server-side checks are stricter about who can access what. These changes apply across Android, iOS, and the upcoming web client.

v1.13.0 — Progression, Combat, and QoL

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 17:15:00 -0400

v1.13.0 is a quality-of-life release focused on progression clarity, cleaner combat feedback, and fewer frustrating edge cases in trading, movement, and corporation flows.

Cargo Hold Milestones

Cargo hold upgrades now use a clearer five-tier milestone system.

This makes ship progression easier to understand at a glance and gives hold growth a more structured sense of advancement instead of feeling like a flat list of incremental purchases.

Trading, Wallet, and Upgrade Accuracy

Several economy and upgrade edge cases were cleaned up in this release.

v1.12.2 — Season & Trading Fixes

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0400

v1.12.2 is a stability and accuracy pass across seasons, trading, combat, and exploration.

Season Setup Accuracy

Season setup screens now display correct counts, combat stats, and Past Seasons data. Previously, certain values could drift out of sync — this release ensures the numbers you see match your actual season record.

Trading and Pirate Combat Fixes

Edge cases in trading and pirate combat that could mis-handle cargo quantities or credit totals have been resolved. Transactions and combat loot now settle correctly in all scenarios.

v1.11.1 — Alpha Season Complete

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0400

Big Bang Smugglers v1.11.1 closes out the first alpha season and hands the ship over to beta. Here is what changed.

Season End Recap

When a season ends, you now see a full recap before returning to the lobby. The recap screen shows your final stats — credits, XP, kills, missions completed, planets owned, sectors explored, streak, and more — alongside the top finishers in each category. You can see who walked away as Richest Captain, Top Bounty Hunter, Mission Master, Planet Baron, and more.

v1.10.3 — Scanning, Factions & Pricing

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:00:00 -0400

v1.10.3 brings faster scanning, faction-driven economics, and a round of scan reliability fixes.

Instant Scan Sector Results

Sector scans now return results immediately with richer detail. The bridge flow is faster — no waiting, no extra taps. You scan, you see what’s out there.

Faction Reputation Pricing

Your faction standing now directly affects your wallet. Ports controlled by factions you’re aligned with offer discounts on trades and purchases. Hostile factions mark prices up. NPC traders follow the same rules — reputation matters everywhere you spend credits.

v1.10.2 — Combat Stat Fix

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 08:00:35 -0400

v1.10.2 is a targeted combat fix.

This update corrects a bug where significant stat advantages were not carrying their expected weight in battle. Ships with heavy shields or large combat power leads were still suffering total defeats against much weaker opponents — an outcome that should have been rare but was happening too often.

Combat Outcomes Now Reflect Stat Gaps

The core issue: shields were providing little to no actual damage mitigation, and attrition losses were not scaling with the actual gap between combatants.

v1.10.1 — Player Search & Keyboard Fix

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 17:55:00 -0400

v1.10.1 is a focused usability fix for player search.

This update improves the reliability of searching for players in bounty-related flows and fixes UI friction around the keyboard covering or interfering with the search experience.

Case-Insensitive Player Search

Player search now works more reliably regardless of capitalization.

This makes search behavior more forgiving and avoids frustrating misses caused by simple case differences in player names.

Keyboard Overlay Fix

The search flow now behaves better when the on-screen keyboard is active.

v1.10.0 — QoL and Bounty Follow-Up

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 07:30:00 -0400

v1.10.0 is a quality-of-life and progression update that builds on the recent corporation, bounty, and faction systems.

This release improves visibility, tracking, and pricing behavior across several major systems and closes out a few long-running follow-up items.

Tappable Corp Cards on Leaderboards

Corporation cards on the leaderboard are now interactive, making it easier to inspect corporation information from the leaderboard flow instead of treating it as static display data.

Player Platform Tracking and Version Gating

The game now tracks player platform details and supports stronger version-aware behavior.

v1.9.6 — Bounty & NPC Follow-Up Fixes

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 21:50:00 -0400

v1.9.6 is a focused follow-up patch for the new NPC engagement and faction bounty systems.

This release cleans up a few important edge cases found after the broader bounty and interaction overhaul shipped.

Pirates No Longer Spawn in Federation Territory

Pirates were still able to appear in Federation-controlled space under some conditions.

That behavior is now fixed so Federation territory behaves the way the region rules intend.

Sector Validation Added to Remaining NPC Interaction Functions

Four remaining NPC interaction paths were still missing proper sector validation.

v1.9.5 — NPC & Bounty Stability Update

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 19:25:00 -0400

v1.9.5 is a stabilization update for the new NPC engagement and faction bounty systems, plus a long-overdue wiring fix for stations.

This release focuses on making the systems introduced in the recent major updates work reliably in live gameplay.

NPC Combat Button Fixes

Several attack buttons in the new NPC interaction flows were sending the wrong parameters to combat initiation.

This prevented combat from resolving correctly from multiple modal paths. The wiring is now corrected across the affected NPC interaction screens.

v1.9.0 — NPC Engagement & Faction Bounty System

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 12:40:00 -0400

v1.9.0 is a major NPC interaction and bounty system update.

This release changes NPC encounters from simple combat triggers into a more dynamic system with clearer player choice, faction consequences, bounty hunting, wanted status, and smarter interaction flows.

NPC encounters now use a cleaner engagement model with a single Engage button and type-specific options.

This makes encounters easier to understand and puts the costs and consequences up front instead of hiding them behind inconsistent flows.

v1.8.0 — Combat Overhaul

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 21:58:00 -0400

v1.8.0 is a major combat overhaul release.

This update reworks how combat feels across the game. Ship tier still matters, but fighters, torpedoes, shields, stealth, environment, faction behavior, and NPC interactions all matter much more than before.

Combat Formula Rebalance

The underlying combat formulas have been retuned so consumables and loadout decisions are decisive instead of marginal.

This includes:

reduced ship base power dominance
much stronger fighter, torpedo, and shield weighting
shield-based attrition reduction
torpedo shield penetration
fighter superiority shifting win odds before the main combat roll

The result is that stocked ships, better prep, and better tactical choices matter much more.

v1.7.0 — Corps Tab Rebuild

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 19:05:00 -0400

v1.7.0 is a bigger corporation update that rolls the recent corps fixes into a cleaner, more integrated interface.

The Corps tab has been rebuilt from the old sub-tab layout into a card-based screen that stays in theme with the rest of the app and puts the most important actions directly in front of you.

Corps Tab Rebuild

The old My Corp / Browse / Create sub-tabs are gone.

If you are not in a corporation, the Corps tab now shows:

v1.6.2 — Corp Actions and Browse Fixes

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 11:45:00 -0400

v1.6.2 is a corporation hotfix.

It fixes two separate issues in the corporation screens: actions that could report false errors even when they succeeded, and a Corp Browse query that could silently return an empty list.

Corp Actions Fix

Several corporation flows were checking the wrong response fields in the app. The backend action could succeed, but the UI would still show an error message.

This update fixes false error states for:

v1.6.1 — Corp Layout Fix

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 21:00:00 +0000

v1.6.1 is a quick fix for the corporation screens.

The alignment filter buttons on the Corp Browse tab and the alignment selector on the Corp Create tab were overflowing their cards on smaller screens. They now wrap to the next line cleanly.

v1.6.0 — Corporation Overhaul

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 20:00:00 +0000

v1.6.0 is a major overhaul of the corporation system, fixing several long-standing bugs and adding new mechanics for how corps are managed and joined.

Bug Fixes

Corporation names were not appearing on planet info screens or public player profiles due to a data path mismatch. Corp leader status was also not being recognized correctly when managing corp-owned planets, meaning leaders couldn’t perform certain management actions. Both issues are fixed.

Real-Time Corporation Sync

Corporation data now updates in real-time across all screens via a live Firestore listener. Previously, corp membership and role information could be stale until you refreshed. Now your corp status, member list, and recent activity sync instantly without needing to reload.

v1.5.5 — Trading UI & Toast Fixes

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

v1.5.5 is a polish update with two UI fixes.

Trading Screen Layout

Buy and sell controls are now on separate rows instead of crammed side-by-side on one line. Each row has a label, a quantity input, a Max button, and a Buy or Sell button. This makes the trading interface much easier to use, especially on smaller screens.

Toast Notifications Above Modals

Toast notifications were invisible when a modal was open — for example, buying a ship at a starport would show a success or error toast behind the modal instead of on top of it. Toasts now render above all modals so you always see the feedback. The ship purchase screen also now validates your XP level before letting you attempt the purchase, so you get a clear message instead of a backend error.

v1.5.4 — Max Buttons & Toast Fix

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0000

v1.5.4 is a quality-of-life update with two improvements.

Max Buttons on Trading Screens

Buy and sell screens now have a Max button next to the quantity input. Tapping it fills the quantity with the most you can buy (limited by your credits and free cargo space) or the most you can sell (your full stack). You can still adjust the number before confirming. Max buttons are on the standard trading screen, the black market, and trading posts.

v1.5.3 — Inventory & Ship Services Fix

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 21:00:00 +0000

v1.5.3 is a hotfix for two broken screens introduced in v1.5.2.

Mining Workers Not Showing

Players with mining workers in their ship inventory were seeing “No Mining Workers in inventory” on the Planet screen despite having workers available. The fix restores the inventory data feed to the planet screen so worker counts display correctly and deployment works as expected.

Ship Services Broken

The Ship Services screen at starports was completely unusable — tapping into it produced errors. This was caused by the same missing inventory data connection. Both screens are now fixed.

v1.5.2 — Player Profiles, Toasts & Contracts

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 19:00:00 +0000

v1.5.2 is a quality-of-life update with three notable improvements.

Player Profiles

Players now have public profile cards showing lifetime stats — kills, deaths, missions completed, trades, sectors explored, credits earned, and current streak. Tap a player name on the leaderboard to see their profile. Your own stats are visible in the Settings screen with additional detail only you can see.

Themed Notifications

The game’s system alerts have been replaced with a custom notification system that fits the space theme. Success messages appear in teal, errors in red, warnings in yellow, and event notifications in gold. Notifications stack at the top of the screen, animate in and out, and can be dismissed with a swipe. Confirmation dialogs are also styled to match the game rather than using the plain system modal.

v1.5.1 — Bridge Tab Polish

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

v1.5.1 is a polish pass on the Bridge tab and a fix for warp drive route calculation hanging on long distances.

Warp Drive Route Fix

Calculating a warp route was timing out for long distances. The pathfinding was making a separate database read for every sector it explored — in a large galaxy that’s hundreds of sequential round trips, easily pushing past the timeout limit. The fix loads all sector connections in a single batch query and runs the pathfinding entirely in memory. Warp route previews and navigation should now be instant regardless of distance.

v1.5.0 — Missions, Goals, Streaks & Faction Bounties

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:00:00 +0000

v1.5.0 is the biggest feature update yet, adding four interconnected systems that give you more reasons to play every day and reward consistent engagement.

Mission Board Overhaul

Missions now come in three flavors. Standard missions are the contracts you already know — trade runs, combat bounties, and exploration tasks. Daily missions are a single shared mission available to all players each day; claim it once and complete it for a bonus reward on top of the normal payout. Event missions appear during special in-game events with a countdown timer showing how long they’re available.

v1.4.4 — Alignment, Level Progression, and Feed Pins

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 21:00:00 +0000

v1.4.4 fixes two progression display bugs and adds pinned feed announcements.

Alignment Was Always Showing as Neutral

Your faction standing in the Ship Stats screen was always displaying as True Neutral regardless of your actual alignment score. The reader was looking at the wrong field in the player record. It now reads correctly — if you’ve been doing good deeds or running contraband, your faction tier will reflect it.

Level Was Stuck at Recruit Level 1

XP was being awarded correctly by trading, exploring, combat, and missions — but your level was only recalculating when you completed a mission. Every other XP source left the level field untouched. Your level will now update immediately after any XP-granting action.

Combat System Highlights: v1.2.6 through v1.4.3

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Over the past couple of weeks, combat has seen the most significant overhaul in Big Bang Smugglers history. This is a quick summary of what changed and why.

Shields Are Now the Only Thing You Repair

Before v1.4.0, repair was a blurry concept. The starport would try to restore fighters, torpedoes, and shields all at once, but the math was inconsistent and the display was confusing. More importantly, it didn’t make a lot of thematic sense — you don’t “repair” bullets.

v1.4.3 — Combat Loss Fixes

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 20:00:00 +0000

v1.4.3 fixes a series of bugs where losing a fight had no real consequences.

Combat Losses Now Stick

When you lost a fight, the defeat recap screen appeared correctly but nothing actually changed. Your shields, fighters, and credits were untouched, and your ship was never disabled. This happened in two different ways:

For non-aggressive NPCs, the combat commit was fire-and-forget — if it failed silently, you’d see the recap but no effects applied. The fix: the app now waits for the commit before showing the recap, and surfaces an error if something goes wrong.

v1.4.1 — Starport Weapon Purchase

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

v1.4.1 finishes the weapon purchase system introduced in v1.4.0 and fixes a loot calculation bug.

Weapon Purchase in TriStar Shipyard

The Fighter Bay and Torpedo Bay are now available inside the TriStar Shipyard & Maintenance Bay at any starport. Use the quantity stepper to buy as many fighters or torpedoes as you want at flat prices — 75 credits per fighter, 150 credits per torpedo — up to your ship’s maximum capacity.

v1.4.0 — Combat Overhaul

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0000

v1.4.0 is a significant overhaul of the combat system and how you manage your ship’s weapons and defenses.

Attack vs Defense

Combat power is now split into separate attack and defense calculations.

Shields are pure defense. They have no effect on your attack power — only on how hard you are to damage or disable.

Fighters are pure attack. They deal damage but contribute nothing to your defense.

Torpedoes are pure attack with a heavier punch than fighters. One torpedo is worth roughly 2.5 fighters in attack power, but costs twice as much to purchase.

v1.3.6 — Combat Rewards Fixed

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:00:00 +0000

v1.3.6 fixes a significant bug where NPC combat had no real consequences.

What Was Broken

After the instant combat changes in v1.3.1–v1.3.4, none of the combat results were actually being saved. Win or lose, your ship took no damage, you received no loot, and disabled ships stayed active. The battle recap showed the correct outcome — but nothing behind it was real.

Two separate bugs combined to cause this:

Background execution: Cloud Functions v2 does not reliably run code after a response is sent. The previous architecture used a “fire and forget” pattern to apply combat effects after returning the move result to the app. In practice, this meant the writes were silently dropped.

v1.3.5 — Repair Modal & Feed Polish

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 22:00:00 +0000

v1.3.5 is a small polish release.

Styled Repair Complete Screen

The plain gray system dialog that appeared after repairing your ship at a starport has been replaced with a proper in-game screen. It now shows exactly what was restored (fighters, shields, torpedoes) and what it cost, including bank fees if applicable.

Feed Highlights Trimmed

“Your Recent Highlights” in the Galaxy Feed now shows one item instead of five. It was too noisy.

v1.3.4 — Flee Now Works

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 21:00:00 +0000

v1.3.4 fixes a bug introduced with instant combat in v1.3.1.

Flee No Longer Damages Your Ship

When you encountered a non-aggressive NPC and chose to flee, your ship was still taking damage and could be disabled — even though you never attacked. This happened because combat was being resolved and written to the database the moment you entered the sector, before you made a choice.

Now combat is computed instantly as before, but the result is only committed when you actually hit Attack. If you flee, nothing is written and your ship is untouched. Ambush encounters (where flee is not an option) are unchanged and still resolve immediately.

v1.3.3 — Feed Privacy Fix

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 20:00:00 +0000

v1.3.3 fixes a privacy bug in the Galaxy Feed and cleans up the feed layout.

Feed Privacy Fix

Private NPC combat messages — the first-person results like “Dread Jackal disabled your ship” — were appearing in other players’ feeds instead of only the player who was attacked. This was caused by a query in the feed search path that wasn’t filtering by player. Three layers of protection are now in place: backend query filtering, Firestore security rules, and scoped real-time listeners on the client. Private messages are now only visible to the player they belong to.

v1.3.2 — Instant Combat

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 01:00:00 +0000

v1.3.2 is a significant architecture improvement to how NPC encounters work.

Instant Combat Results

Previously, when you entered a sector and encountered an NPC, hitting Attack triggered a second backend call that had to cold-start, look up your ship and cargo, resolve the fight, write the results to the database, and then return — all while you waited. This could take anywhere from a few seconds to over a minute.

v1.2.8 — Ship Purchase Fix

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Version 1.2.8 fixes a data integrity bug introduced when purchasing a new ship at a starport.

What Was Wrong

When you bought a new ship, the old ship was deleted and a new one created. The new ship was set up correctly, but your player account was not always updated to point at it. This left some players in a state where their account referenced a ship that no longer existed, which could break the ship screen, deployables, stealth scanning, and other features that depend on knowing your current ship.

v1.2.7 — Turn Reset Fix

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Version 1.2.7 is a focused bug fix for the turn reset timer.

What Was Wrong

After your turns reset, the countdown timer could display wildly wrong values — sometimes showing nearly 24 hours remaining instead of the expected 4 hours or less. This happened because the backend had two separate turn reset systems that used different logic. The main movement system used the correct 4-hour UTC boundaries, but the profile system still used an older midnight-only reset check. Whichever one ran last would overwrite the stored timer value, and if the midnight-based path fired, it would write a reset time roughly 24 hours in the future.

v1.2.6 — Starport Polish & Ship Stats

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Version 1.2.6 is a polish pass on the starport and ship screen, fixing a cluster of display and behavior bugs reported by players.

Shipyard Overhaul

The shipyard now shows fighters, torpedoes, and cargo holds as separate cards, each with a consistent layout: your current count, the maximum you can reach with upgrades, and a buy button with the cost shown inline. If a stat is fully upgraded the buy button is replaced with a confirmation so you know you have hit the ceiling.

v1.2.3 — Bug Fixes

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Version 1.2.3 is a follow-up to v1.2.1, which introduced several regressions that made it into the Play Store before they were caught. This release finishes what 1.2.1 started.

Combat Power

Your combat power was always displaying as 50 during NPC encounters regardless of your actual fighters, shields, and torpedoes. The screen data endpoint that powers the navigation screen was returning a stripped-down ship object that omitted combat stats entirely. It now returns the full stat set, so your displayed combat power reflects your actual ship.

v1.2.2 — Web and Screen Data Fixes

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Version 1.2.2 is a hotfix for regressions introduced in v1.2.1’s performance pass.

What Broke

The v1.2.1 performance update removed unnecessary authentication token refreshes from every cloud function call. During that cleanup, three composite data endpoints were accidentally rewired to call the wrong backend functions. Each one returned a different data shape than the screen expected, causing silent failures.

The navigation screen went blank. The starport showed “Unavailable.” The ship screen failed to load. All three issues had the same root cause.

v1.2.1 — Performance, Warp, and Combat Fixes

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Version 1.2.1 is a performance and bug fix release. The game should feel noticeably faster across the board.

Performance

Every cloud function call – moving, trading, scanning, combat, warp, everything – was force-refreshing the authentication token before executing. Firebase tokens are valid for an hour, so this was an unnecessary server round trip on every single action, adding roughly half a second to a full second of latency each time. That is removed. The whole game is faster now.

v1.2.0 — Ship Class Overhaul and Upgrade Improvements

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Version 1.2.0 makes ship choice matter more.

Ship Class Identities

Previously all ship classes shared identical shield values at each tier, and the differences between a trading ship and a warship were easy to miss. That changes in 1.2.0.

Trading ships – the Nebula Merchant line and their Smuggling counterparts – now carry significantly more cargo and escape at 55%. They are not built for combat. Their advantage is in moving goods and getting out when things go wrong.

v1.1.2 — Mine Triggers and Deployed Mine Tracking

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Two mine system fixes that should have been there from the start.

Mine Triggers Now Work

Mines were not detonating when an enemy ship entered a mined sector. The trigger logic is now in place. When a player moves into a sector containing enemy mines, each mine has a 60% chance to trigger, dealing 30 to 50 damage. Up to 3 mines can trigger per move. Triggered mines are consumed – they are gone after they fire.

v1.1.1 — Planet Production and Stability Fixes

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

A focused patch on planet production, which had several bugs that prevented planets from producing reliably.

Planet Production Fixes

The production tick query had a Firestore index issue that caused it to silently return zero planets, meaning nothing was actually producing. That is fixed. The collect function also had a bug where it failed to reset the production ready flag after collection, which caused the scheduling gate to break on subsequent ticks.

v1.1.0 — Bounties, Trading Posts, and the Web Version

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Version 1.1.0 is a major feature release. Three new systems and a new way to play.

Bounty System

Players can now post bounties on other players from any tavern. Set a credit reward, and it goes live in the galaxy. When another player takes down the target, the bounty pays out automatically. Collections show up in the feed, so the galaxy knows when a contract is settled.

Player-Built Trading Posts

Planet owners can now construct a trading post on their planet. Trading posts sell commodities to passing players at competitive prices, and the owner earns a percentage of every sale. Build from your planet screen once you have a Warehouse at level 2. Upgrade the post over time to increase stock capacity and revenue. Other players can attempt to rob your trading post, so a strong garrison matters.

Planet Combat, Intel Brokers & Starport Fixes

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Big night. 14 issues closed across two parallel workstreams — new features going in while bugs from yesterday’s QA session got fixed simultaneously.

New Features

Planet Combat

You can now attack enemy planets. Raid them for loot, hold them with your garrison, lose them if you leave them exposed. The planet raid system closes the loop on one of the biggest gaps from the Feb 6th planets audit — we had colonization and production, but no way to actually fight over territory. That changes today.

QA: Joshua Plays the Game

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

We let Joshua (the AI assistant) play the game.

Not in a sandbox. Not against mocked data. Real game, real backend, real Cloud Functions — using a CLI tool to make API calls as a live player character. Joshua explored sectors, traded cargo, visited starports, claimed planets, and generally tried to break everything.

It worked. 11 bugs found in one session.

What Got Found

Galaxy generator problems

After exploring 130+ sectors, ruins and wormhole landmarks simply weren’t appearing. The galaxy generator wasn’t placing them. Filed, fixed — ruins and wormhole placement now included in sector generation.

3x Faster Load Times — The Composite Endpoint Overhaul

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The Problem We Didn’t Notice (Until We Did)

Every time you opened the Nav screen, the app was making four separate round trips to the server:

Fetch your player profile
Fetch your current sector data
Fetch players in your sector
Fetch your recent sectors

Each of those four calls also independently read your player document from the database — so your profile was being read four times just to load one screen. Multiply that across every tab you visit, and you’re looking at a lot of wasted work.

Feed Notifications - Community Activity Without Surveillance

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The Problem

Players had no awareness of what was happening in their galaxy. Did someone join? Complete a big mission? Buy a capital ship? Claim a planet? No way to know.

The galaxy felt empty and isolated, even with dozens of active players.

The Vision

Show community activity without tactical surveillance.

Players should see:

✅ Who’s joining/leaving
✅ Major achievements (mission complete, ship purchase)
✅ Territory changes (planet claims)
✅ Combat outcomes (who won/lost)

Players should not see:

Galaxy Cleanup & Stability

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

When a galaxy ends, it should actually end.

We found two issues with our galaxy destruction process that meant old data was lingering after a season closed. We fixed both, plus cleaned up a player stats issue that was carrying state between seasons.

Starports Weren’t Being Cleaned Up

When a galaxy was destroyed, the starport documents were orphaned. The galaxy was gone but the starport collection was still sitting in Firestore. That’s unnecessary storage, and it’s the kind of ghost data that causes confusing edge cases if a galaxy ID ever gets reused.

Galaxy Creation Improvements - Clean, Easy, Repeatable

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The Problem

Galaxy creation was overwhelming. Admins faced 88 parameters across 5 tabs, with no guidance on what values to use. The result? Decision paralysis and abandoned setups.

Even experienced admins just wanted to create a standard galaxy with a few tweaks, but had to wade through dozens of settings most would never change.

The Solution: 4-Phase Overhaul

Phase 1: Remove Template Manager (Completed)

The template manager was a placeholder showing “Coming Soon.” We realized the seed system already solved the problem.

PvP System Overhaul - Sector-Based Combat with Safe Zones

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The Problem

PvP combat was broken in subtle ways:

Wrong Location: Battle station was a port service (why would space combat require a port?)
Not Enforced: The pvpEnabled flag was cosmetic - didn’t actually disable PvP
No Safe Zones: New players had no protection, spawned into potential combat immediately

The result? Confusion, frustration, and PvP that felt tacked-on rather than integrated.

The Vision

PvP should be sector-based, not port-based. You’re in space - combat happens anywhere, anytime (when allowed).

Starport Services Launch

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Remember the Federation Starports redesign post? The one where most sections said “coming soon”?

Today we crossed them off.

12 GitHub issues closed. All six starport locations now fully operational. The redesign isn’t a concept anymore — it’s live.

What Shipped

TriStar Shipyard

Warp drive is now a real thing you can buy and install at the shipyard. The upgrade path works too — take your existing drive and push it to the next tier. Both the install and upgrade functions went through testing and shipped today.

Federation Starports: From Menus to Living Spaces

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The old starports felt like a vending machine.

Click a tab. Pick a service. Done. Functional? Sure. Immersive? Not even close.

The new starports feel like a place you actually visit.

When you dock now, you see a directory. Six distinct locations. Each with its own name, its own purpose, its own vibe. You’re not navigating menus—you’re walking through a space station.

The Six Locations

🏦 Federation Reserve Bank

Your credits. Secured.

Quality of Life Fixes

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Not every update is a major feature. Sometimes you just fix the things that quietly annoy players every session.

February 12th was one of those days — four fixes, all polish, all feel.

XP Display Was Lying

The warp drive purchase screen was showing “0/100 XP” for a player who had 1,227 XP. That’s a bad look. The field read was wrong — it was pulling from the wrong path in the player doc. Fixed. Now the XP requirement actually reflects your real progress.

Bug Fix Sprint

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

After the audit blitz on Feb 5-6, we had a clear list of what to fix first. February 8th was pure execution — 8 bugs closed, fast.

The Fixes

Credits in the wrong field (twice)

Two separate functions were reading bank.credits instead of the player’s wallet. The warp drive purchase showed 0 XP because it was reading playerData.xp instead of stats.xp. The repair function had the same pattern — reading a stale or wrong field. Both shipped same day.

Mission, Performance & Docs Audit

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

February 6 was a long day. We split the work into three parallel audit tracks — missions, performance, and documentation. This is the first of three posts from that session.

Mission System: The Whole Thing Was Broken

We audited the mission system end-to-end and found that most mission types literally could not complete. Not “had edge cases.” Could not complete.

Here’s the breakdown:

Courier missions — dispatch/document system missing, first objective impossible
Survey missions — probe deployment system missing
Pirate heist — boarding mechanics missing
Sabotage missions — no way to plant explosives
Rescue missions — personnel rescue system doesn’t exist
Bounty/raid missions — target and convoy spawn system missing, nothing to hunt
Ship upgrade missions — upgrade categories (engines/weapons/sensors) don’t exist
Equipment missions — equipment parts inventory missing
Planet raid missions — planet raid mechanics not implemented
Corporate operation missions — no high-value mining targets exist
Escort missions — merchant rendezvous system missing, merchant can’t be found

That’s 11 issue tickets in one audit. A lot of mission templates were referencing systems that had never been built. We also found that 32 NPC-dependent mission templates had been removed at some point — those got flagged for restoration.

Multiplayer Systems Audit

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

This is part 2 of the February 6th audit. While one track covered missions and performance, we ran a parallel deep dive into everything multiplayer: PvP, leaderboards, NPCs, and social systems.

The headline: a lot of it was scaffolding.

PvP: Disabled and Orphaned

The PvP combat system had been disabled — the Cloud Functions removed — but the UI was still there. Players could see combat controls. Nothing behind them worked. Combat notifications? Missing. Attacked players weren’t notified. The player detection system existed but its only consumer was the disabled combat code.

Planets, Warp & Trade

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The third track from February 6th covered the planet system, warp drive, and trade. A lot of backend was there — UI wasn’t keeping up.

Planets: Backend Ahead of Frontend

The planet system had real depth on the backend. Functions for deposits, withdrawals, daily production ticks, collection — all implemented, all undocumented or mis-documented.

What we found in the audit:

The planet-system built doc claimed 100% complete. It was not.
FUNCTIONS_INDEX.md was missing 5 planet functions entirely
PlanetsScreen.md wasn’t in SCREENS_INDEX.md
Documentation for planetDailyProductionTick, planetProductionCollect, planetWithdraw, and planetDeposit were all missing
The production ready flag existed in backend data but wasn’t surfaced in the UI
No garrison management function implemented
No planet transfer or ownership change function
No population growth over time
No planet defense or raid combat system

The backend team had done solid work. Docs and UI just hadn’t caught up. We filed the tickets, corrected the specs, and built the planet roadmap from scratch.

Auditing the Foundation

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Before you can build fast, you have to know what’s actually broken.

We spent February 5th doing a full audit of the codebase — UI wiring, function exports, duplication — and we weren’t gentle. By the end of the day we had filed 23 GitHub issues across three categories: UI wiring gaps, function audit failures, and duplication problems.

What We Found

UI Wiring Gaps

Dead buttons everywhere. ShipServicesSubScreen was calling shipRename without a shipId. shipUpgrade had a parameter mismatch. The MapScreen’s Deploy Defenses button was a stub. Combat and repair buttons on CombatScreen — stubs. Stations screen — stubs. PlanetsScreen was rendering hardcoded data instead of hitting the backend at all.

Releases on Big Bang Smugglers

v2.10.1 — Forgot password + Android 15 insets

v2.10.0 — Dominion

Dominion (preview)

v2.9.0 — The Long Arc

Legend ranks unlock real things

Bigger ships

Bigger planets

Luxuries

Bank bonds

v2.8.0 — Ports & Planets Pay

Ports

Planets

Outlaws & bounties

Mines

Ships & prices

While you were gone

v2.7.0 — The Turns Update

Turns

Smuggling

Trading

Planets

Ships

Hunting & intel

Your captain

New players

Bounties

v2.6.0 — Bounties, corps and favorites

Bounties & immunity

Corporations

Combat & planets

Navigation

v2.5.3 — Toolbar and badge fixes

Interface

Comms

v2.5.2 — Keyboard fixes

Interface

v2.5.1 — Comms fixes

Comms

v2.5.0 — Comms

Comms

Galaxy posts

Hails

Corporation chat

Fair play

Under the hood

v2.4.0 — Fixes From the Discord

Smuggling

Boosters

Planets

Corporations

Interface

Website

Under the hood

v2.3.0 — You Asked, We Built It

Planets

Mines

Smuggling rebalance

Alignment

Combat

Navigation

Fixes you reported

Under the hood

v2.2.1 — Bug Sweep

Combat & missions

Ship & inventory

Navigation

Stats & leaderboards

v2.2.0 — The Premium Market Opens

Smuggling — the premium market opens

Combat

v2.1.0 — Out of Beta

Out of beta

Combat & mines

Ports & trading

Quality of life

Seasons ahead

v2.0.9 — Retinues and Trader Encounters

Tavern retinues

NPC trader encounters