Trading on Big Bang Smugglers

Trading & the Market

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

The three commodities

Commodity	Volume per unit
Fuel	1
Organics	1
Equipment	2

A 200-hold ship carries 200 fuel or 100 equipment. Equipment has the highest prices in the game and the highest spread, but you move half as many units per run. That trade-off is the point.

How a price is actually computed

Every port archetype has an anchor price per commodity — the price it would charge if its shelves were exactly at baseline. Two forces move the real price off the anchor.

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.

v2.0.2 / 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.

v1.15.0 — 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.

v1.14.1 — 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.

v1.5.5 — 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.

v1.4.3 — 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.

v1.2.6 — 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.

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.

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.