BSGO · Pilot reference · Build 0.0.129
A complete tour of every system you can actually use — what it is, how to reach it, and the numbers that matter. If a feature is not on this page, it is not in the game. For reward multipliers see the Bonus Handbook; for combat maths see the Combat Reference.
BSGO Nova is completely free — there are no microtransactions and no paid currency. Every resource in the game, cubits included, is earned by playing.
Your faction decides your ships, your home sectors, your enemies and your command room. Colonials start in Alpha Ceti, Cylons in Apollid. The two rosters are exact mirrors — every Colonial hull has a stat-identical Cylon counterpart, so neither side has a mechanical advantage.
New pilots drop straight into a full guided mission — turning, strafing, rolling, throttle, targeting, gunnery, three drone waves and a final run to the fleet. Starbuck walks Colonials through it; Number Six handles Cylons. You can skip it at any time.
After the tutorial you pick between your faction's two Strike hulls — Viper Mk-II or Raptor for Colonials, Raider or Heavy Raider for Cylons. It is a one-shot offer, so choose deliberately.
Possible from CIC settings, for a large cubit fee. It converts your whole hangar to the mirror faction and wipes your avatar, wing membership and entire friends list, resets missions and moves you to the new home sector. Renaming your character is also available for a fee; both prices are set by staff and can change.
There is one experience track running from level 1 to 255, plus a broad set of duty titles and thirteen public leaderboards.
The level formula
your level = √(XP ÷ 1000) + 1 XP for a level = (level − 1)² × 1000
Each level costs (2 × level − 1) × 1,000 more experience than the one before it.
Total experience needed to reach each level.
| Level | Total XP |
|---|---|
| 2 | 1,000 |
| 5 | 16,000 |
| 10 | 81,000 |
| 20 | 361,000 |
| 50 | 2,401,000 |
| 100 | 9,801,000 |
Duties tick along in the background as you play — kills, mining, objectives and more. Each level completed unlocks a title you can display under your name. Progress appears in your combat log as it happens.
Kills, victory ratio, victories per hour, mining, planetoid mining, progression, objectives, waves, Arena 1v1 and 3v3, and kill / support / damage actions. Two columns are worth knowing: Survivor counts PvP kills landed while your own hull was at 20% or less, and Saviour counts kills on an enemy that was attacking a badly damaged ally.
You may see a skill tree in the interface. It is not something you need to manage — all skills are granted at full rank automatically to every pilot, so there is nothing to train, buy or reset. Your ship's performance comes from your hull, your equipment and its upgrade level.
Seventeen hulls per faction across four tiers, most with a Standard and an Advanced variant. Ships are bought with in-game currency and, once bought, are yours permanently — they cannot be sold, scrapped or lost.
Every hull has a stat-identical counterpart on the other side.
| Role | Colonial | Cylon |
|---|---|---|
| Fighter — tier 1 / 2 / 3 | Viper Mk-II · Scythe · Aesir | Raider · Banshee · Fenrir |
| Command — tier 1 / 2 / 3 | Raptor · Glaive · Vanir | Heavy Raider · Spectre · Hel |
| Defender — tier 1 / 2 / 3 | Rhino · Maul · Jotunn | Marauder · Wraith · Jormung |
| Multi-role — tier 1 / 2 / 3 | Viper Mk-VII · Halberd · Gungnir | War Raider · Liche · Nidhogg |
| Bomber / Stealth | Viper Mk-III · Raven Mk VI-R | Raider Mk-II · Malefactor Type-1 |
| Carrier / Mothership | Brimir · Pegasus | Surtur · Basestar |
The stealth hulls are the only ships in the game with zero armour — glass-cannon recon. Fleet Reserve variants cannot be upgraded.
Twelve slot types; each ship has its own layout.
| Slot family | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Weapon | Cannons, machine guns, kill cannons |
| Missile / Torpedo | Launchers and their ordnance |
| Flak / Point defence | Anti-missile guns |
| Hull / Engine / Computer | Passive stat systems |
| Mining | Mining guns and scanners |
| Utility / Special / Commander | Abilities, nukes, auras |
Five loadout presets per ship. Left-click a preset to load it, right-click to save and rename. Presets are stored on the server and survive item upgrades.
You respawn at 25% hull with a 15-second undock cooldown, and choose where — nearest friendly outpost, home, or a party carrier. You never lose the ship. The one exception is a rented capital ship, which is forfeit on death.
Equipment and hull wear down per hit taken, not on death. Repair from any CIC or captured outpost, one system at a time or all at once. Cost scales with missing durability: titanium ×1.5 or cubits ×0.36 — cubits cost fewer units but are the scarcer currency.
If enemies loiter near a faction spawn point, the camped side automatically gets an overwhelming defence fleet — capital ships ringed around the spawn plus patrolling fighters. They respawn when killed and stand down once the campers leave.
144 paints in the shop and 32 decals per faction, applied to specific points on the hull and visible both in the hangar and out in space.
Every ship system upgrades from level 1 to level 15, and upgrading is the main long-term money sink in the game. Ships themselves upgrade once, from Standard to Advanced.
Currency is guaranteed; tuning kits are a gamble.
| Method | How it works |
|---|---|
| Currency | Pick a target level and pay. Always succeeds. |
| Tuning kits | Spend kits for a chance at the next level. Kits are consumed either way. |
Tuning kit success chance
chance = kits spent ÷ (cubit price ÷ 1000)
Capped at 100%. The more expensive the upgrade, the more kits a guaranteed result needs.
The first ten levels are cheap and quick. Beyond level 10 upgrades switch to premium currency and the cost climbs steeply — the bulk of a fully maxed item's price sits in those last five levels. This is the long game.
NPC kills drop salvage you sell for currency. The low six grades pay tylium (7.5 up to 225). The four top grades — Rare Elements, Heavy Metals, Reactor Core and Isotopes — drop from bosses and pay 500, 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 cubits. Sell them one at a time from your hold.
The galaxy holds 454 combat NPCs across its sectors, plus scheduled events, roaming bosses and a wave-based mission mode.
All spawn in contested sectors. Rank determines your share of the reward bundle.
| Event | Timer | What it is | Top bundle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fleet in Distress | 10 min | Defend or destroy a freighter under attack. Five escalating waves. | 30,000 tylium · 2,000 titanium · 1,500 water · 150 cubits · 1 kit |
| Drone Nexus | 25 min | Escalating drone waves every 60 seconds. | 30,000 tylium · 3,000 titanium · 1,500 water · 200 cubits · 1 kit |
| Guardian Basestar | 15 min | A roaming 100,000-hull Ancient boss that jumps between sectors. | 40,000 tylium · 4,000 titanium · 300 cubits · 10–30 shards |
| Typhon asteroids | — | White Ancient asteroids; breaking one has a 75% chance to spawn a comet worth 3 shards. | Typhon Shards for the event shop |
Ranks scale the whole bundle: Platinum 100%, Gold 75%, Silver 50%, Bronze 25%. In Fleet in Distress both sides are paid — the losing side takes Bronze, so turning up and losing still beats staying home.
A wave-defence mission run from the DRADIS console in CIC.
| Map | Unlocks at | Waves |
|---|---|---|
| Delta | Level 1 | 5 solo / 8 party |
| Alpha | Level 5 | 8 / 12 |
| Beta | Level 10 | 12 / 18 |
| Gamma | Level 20 | 15 / 22 |
Entry costs Fragmented FTL Coordinates, won from the DRADIS wheel. Seven objectives; completing all seven is Platinum. Waves that reach the nav point escape — you fail that objective but the mission continues, and you respawn in place after 30 seconds. Rare-drop chance runs 45% at Platinum down to nothing at Bronze.
A separate zone where you collect cargo inside a radiation field and haul it to your faction's dropoff. The closer to the centre, the worse the radiation. Dying, jumping or disconnecting while carrying drops your cargo for everyone else to grab. Pays Contaminated Cubits for the event shop.
Freighter convoys run fixed routes and killing them reduces the enemy's outpost strength. Cargo containers are looted with a five-second channel. Drones come in four types across twelve tiers, scaled to the sector's threat level.
Open-world PvP happens anywhere contested. On top of that there are duels, two ranked arena modes, a consequence-free free-for-all, and scheduled class tournaments.
Each mode has different rules and stakes.
| Mode | Stakes |
|---|---|
| Open world | Full loot, XP and counters. Alerts broadcast at 2v2 and above. |
| Duel (1v1) | Private arena, 10 minutes, no rewards and no rating. Purely for pride. |
| Ranked Arena 1v1 | Queue by ship class. Win by kill, by holding the centre beacon 30s, or on damage at timeout. |
| Ranked Arena 3v3 | Solo queue builds the teams. Elimination — dead stays dead. |
| Free-for-all arena | Zero consequences — no durability loss, no loot, no XP, kills and deaths do not count. |
| Top Gun tournaments | Scheduled, tier-locked, no squads. Cubit prizes and medals for the top three. |
Strike on Saturday, Escort on Sunday, Line on Wednesday, 18:00–20:00 server time. Level 5 and up, no squads. Score is kills × 10 − deaths × 5. Standings are bracketed by level and the top three in each bracket are mailed cubit prizes plus a medal.
You hold a separate rating for each ship class, seeded at 1000 + your level × 5 and adjusted after every match. Carriers are excluded from ranked play. Matches last ten minutes.
Open to every level and every tier, squads allowed, and you can shoot anyone — including your own faction. Respawn is instant and in place at full hull. Nothing that happens there touches your record. It is the place to test a build.
A player kill pays by role — top damage dealer, killer, assist, survivor, buffer — and you are paid for your best role only. Full breakdown in the Bonus Handbook.
Several currencies, each with its own purpose. Nothing here can be bought with real money.
What earns each one, and what it is for.
| Currency | Earned from | Spent on |
|---|---|---|
| Tylium | Mining, kills, missions, events | Ships, gear, ammo, FTL fuel, boost |
| Titanium | Mining, kills, events | Upgrades and repairs |
| Water | Mining, events | Trading to NPCs for cubits |
| Cubits | PvP, missions, duties, boss salvage, the wheel | Premium gear, repairs, upgrades past level 10 |
| Merits | PvP kills, outposts, beacons and the Guardian only | Special shop items, capital rental |
| Uranium | Merit overflow above the cap | Wing development |
| Tuning Kits | The wheel, events, DRADIS rares | Gambled equipment upgrades |
| Comm Access | The wheel, shop | One per fleet-global chat message |
Merits are deliberately absent from ordinary PvE. Regular NPC kills pay cubits, tylium and salvage — never merits. They are capped at 500 a day and 7,000 a week, and in PvP anything over the cap converts to uranium rather than being lost.
A cubit gamble in CIC — pick between one and six contacts to draw.
| Draws | Cost |
|---|---|
| 1 | 200 |
| 2 | 460 |
| 3 | 720 |
| 4 | 980 |
| 5 | 1,240 |
| 6 — full session | 1,500 (5,100 total) |
One free spin every day, and the free draw shifts every later step down a price tier. The free spin is never blocked by the daily draw cap. The jackpot rotates daily through nine prizes — 10,000 cubits, ten tuning kits, Divine Inspiration, boosters and map parts among them.
Logging in offers you one of three reward packs to choose from, on a five-day streak. Miss a day and the streak resets to day one, so consecutive days matter.
Each booster adds +100% to experience, loot, mining or merit income for its duration. Divine Inspiration boosts all four at once for 12 hours — and it can be frozen and banked for up to 31 days, then resumed. The ceiling is 3× per bonus type.
Rewards, staff broadcasts and tournament prizes arrive by in-game mail. Mail holding unclaimed items cannot be deleted and never expires, so nothing is lost by forgetting about it.
The reliable, low-risk income in the game. Mining guns use no ammunition, so the only thing it costs you is time.
Scan colour tells you what is inside before you shoot it.
| Colour | Contains |
|---|---|
| Yellow | Tylium |
| Blue | Water |
| Purple | Titanium |
| Red | Nothing — skip it |
Scan a planetoid, then order a mining ship for a cubit fee — the scan stays valid for ten minutes, and any squad member can place the order. The ship extracts on a timer while you protect it. Mining-ship income is one of the few rewards that goes up per pilot with squad size.
Hostile waves spawn to kill your mining ship and you get an alert when they arrive. Clearing the third, elite wave earns everyone in the party at that moment a +15% bonus on their share. A wing skill can also arm the mining ship with real defensive guns.
Picked up from the assignments officer in CIC, in three periodic tiers plus a dynamic wartime layer. The key thing to understand: one kill advances all three tiers at once.
Effort against reward. They stack rather than replace each other.
| Tier | Resets | Asks | Pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily | Midnight UTC | 1× | 1× |
| Weekly | Monday | 7× | 3× |
| Monthly | The 1st | 30× | 8× |
The reward multiplier is deliberately lower than the effort multiplier, because you are never doing the weekly instead of the daily — the same kills count for both.
Both use 1 + (your level − 1) × 0.1, capped at level 50 — so past 50 missions stop asking for more and stop paying more. Mission offers are also weighted away from whatever you already do most, to vary what you are asked to do.
When enemy players mass in a sector, the server pushes a Regional Combat Patrol — kill 1, 3 or 5 enemy pilots in that specific sector. Level 21 and up, expires after 30 minutes, and turning one in fires a Strategic Victory banner.
Fifty-eight sectors connected by FTL. Territory is contested through outposts, and controlling them pays your entire faction.
Each sector holds one outpost per faction, scored 0 to 3,000.
| Points | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| 900 | Outpost becomes active for your faction |
| 1,000 | Jump beacon appears — fast travel for your side |
| 3,000 | Maximum fortification: fortified hull plus four heavy platforms |
Outposts decay slowly on their own and gain from your faction's presence in the sector. Killing enemy mines and completing convoy routes pushes the enemy's score down. A destroyed jump beacon stays down for an hour.
Every outpost your faction controls grants +1% experience and +1% mining income to every pilot flying that faction, anywhere in the galaxy. Winning a war also grants a personal galaxy-wide buff lasting as long as you fought for it.
Jumping costs tylium and takes a charge time. Squads can jump together, and a fortified carrier acts as a jump destination for its party. Eight systems are faction-locked and the enemy simply cannot jump into them.
Pegasus and Basestar are rented from CIC for 100 merits. Only one of each exists per faction at a time. You are recalled after an hour, you cannot dock while in it, and you lose it on death or on logging out. Capital guns cannot target tier 1 or 2 ships at all.
Tier 4 carriers let squadmates anchor inside them — invisible and untargetable until launched. A fortified carrier pins itself in place and becomes a jump beacon its party can FTL to directly.
Everything outside the game itself — how you get in, how you get help, and what happens when something goes wrong.
The launcher handles login, patching and news, shows whether the server is online, and carries a support ticket system with unread badges. It keeps you signed in securely between sessions. Windows 10 and 11; there are also legacy and Wine builds for older systems and Linux.
Raise a ticket from the launcher or the website and staff answer in a threaded conversation. Forgotten passwords are reset by a one-time emailed code valid for 30 minutes. Any formal staff warning appears in your account portal and must be acknowledged.
Linking your Discord account from the launcher pays a one-time reward by mail. It can only be claimed once ever per account — unlinking and relinking will not pay again.
Bugs go to the public tracker at playbsgo.com/bugs or through Discord, and the changelog on the website is fed live from it. Report player behaviour through a support ticket.
Last updated: 2026-09-07
Squads, wings and chat
Squads are temporary groups of up to ten. Wings are permanent player organisations with their own shared upgrade tree.
Wing development
Twelve nodes in three branches, bought from a shared wing treasury.
Members deposit into the treasury and upgrades spend from it — there is no withdrawing. Each branch costs a different currency mix on purpose, so no branch is funded solely by the members who benefit from it. Node costs rise with wing size.
Ranks and permissions
Six ranks from Recruit to Leader, and every rank name is renameable per wing. Permissions are set individually: invite, promote, kick, edit permissions, officer chat. Leadership can be transferred outright.
Channels and moderation
Fleet, open and system channels each in global and local flavours, plus wing, officer and whisper. Fleet global costs one Comm Access per message. You can ignore any player by name or by right-clicking them, and there is a five-level profanity filter in options.
Squads of up to ten
Invite with /invite or by right-clicking a pilot. Squads survive FTL jumps and can jump together. Squad size changes your rewards — see the Bonus Handbook.