The Best Terraforming Mars Upgrades (And How to Make Your Red Planet Pop)
Terraforming Mars is one of the greatest engine-building games ever designed. The slow burn of raising oxygen, flooding oceans, and watching your tableau snowball into a point-scoring machine is hard to beat — which is exactly why it lands on so many "best board games of all time" lists.
But if you've played more than a few times, you already know the dirty secret hiding in the box: the components don't live up to the design. Tiny cardboard cubes slide all over your player mat. The terrain tiles are flat and forgettable. And every setup turns into a sorting session before anyone actually gets to play.
After years of playing and upgrading board games, we've put together the definitive guide to the best Terraforming Mars upgrades available — the ones that actually fix the game's biggest annoyances and make your table look incredible.
Why Upgrade Terraforming Mars?
The base game is a masterpiece of design wrapped in components that fight you the whole way:
- The cube problem. Terraforming Mars is famous (or infamous) for the cardboard player mats where your resource cubes refuse to stay put. One bump of the table and your carefully tracked economy scatters.
- Flat, lifeless terrain. The ocean, greenery, and city tiles are thin cardboard. For a game about transforming an entire planet, the board ends up looking pretty plain.
- Megacredit chaos. Sorting and storing the money tokens between games is tedious, and counting them mid-game slows everything down.
- Setup fatigue. Without organization, every session starts with five minutes of digging and sorting.
Premium 3D printed upgrades solve all of this at once: better tactile feel, faster setup, a board that finally looks as epic as the gameplay, and cubes that stay exactly where you put them.
1. Upgraded Player Boards — Fix the Sliding Cube Problem
If you only fix one thing about Terraforming Mars, make it the player mats. The thin cardboard boards that come in the box are the single biggest source of frustration at the table — cubes slide, mats curl, and tracking your production becomes a guessing game.
This set of 5 upgraded player boards replaces the flimsy cardboard with sturdy, premium boards in all five player colors. Your production cubes finally have a solid, stable home, your economy stays readable, and the whole table levels up instantly.
Who needs it: Everyone. This is the first upgrade most Terraforming Mars players wish they'd bought sooner.
2. Premium Resource Cubes — The Heart of Your Economy
The little cubes are the currency of the entire game — you'll handle them every single turn — so it's worth making them feel good. These replacement resource cubes upgrade the standard pieces with crisper, more satisfying tokens that are easier to grip, easier to distinguish, and far more pleasant to handle than the originals.
Pair them with the upgraded player boards above and the classic "cubes everywhere" problem basically disappears.
Who needs it: Anyone who plays often and wants the core gameplay loop to feel premium.
3. 3D Terrain Tiles — Bring Mars to Life
This is the upgrade that makes people stop and stare. Instead of flat cardboard hexes, the 3D tile sets give you raised, textured oceans, greenery, and cities that turn your board into an actual landscape as the planet comes to life.
We offer a few options depending on how far you want to go:
- 3D Tile Set — the essential upgrade for your standard ocean, greenery, and city tiles.
- Multicolored 3D Tiles — a premium, fully colored set for maximum table presence.
- Special Tiles Set — covers the special terrain tiles so nothing on your board looks out of place.
Watching the red planet slowly turn blue and green with real dimensional tiles is genuinely one of the best feelings the upgraded game has to offer.
Who needs it: Anyone who wants their board to look as epic as the theme promises — and anyone who shares photos of their games.
4. Megacredit Storage — Trays, Coin Organizers & Credit Boxes
Shop Credit Trays & Organizers →
Money management shouldn't be a chore. These storage solutions keep your megacredits sorted by denomination so you can grab what you need and put away what you don't — during the game and between sessions.
- Credit Tray Set — a coin organizer that keeps your megacredits sorted and ready at the table.
- Cubes Container / Credit Box — clean, stackable storage that keeps everything contained in the box.
Setup goes from minutes of sorting to seconds, and teardown is just as fast.
Who needs it: Anyone tired of fishing through a pile of cardboard money every turn.
5. Pass Tokens & Astronaut Tokens — The Finishing Touches
Once the big upgrades are in place, these are the details that tie everything together:
- Pass Token Upgrade (Set of 5) — color-matched rocket-design pass tokens so it's always clear who's still in the generation. Comes with free astronaut pawns.
- Astronaut Track Tokens — clean, readable track markers that include free O2 and temperature markers, so your global parameters look as sharp as the rest of the board.
Small upgrades, big payoff — these are the pieces your group will keep complimenting.
Who needs it: Anyone building toward the complete, fully-upgraded Terraforming Mars experience.
Bonus: Playing Terraforming Mars — The Dice Game?
If you own the standalone dice game, don't forget it. Our Joker Dice Upgrade swaps the cardboard tokens for 22 wild dice plus astronauts and markers, giving the lighter, faster version of Terraforming Mars the same premium treatment.
The Recommended Upgrade Path
Not sure where to start? Here's how we'd build up your Terraforming Mars upgrade over time:
- Start here: Upgraded Player Boards — fixes the #1 annoyance immediately.
- Add next: Premium Resource Cubes — completes the core economy feel.
- Then: 3D Terrain Tiles — the biggest visual transformation.
- After that: Megacredit Storage — faster setup and teardown every session.
- Endgame: Pass Tokens & Astronaut Tokens — the finishing details that make it feel complete.
About BoardGameUp
All our accessories are 3D printed in Canada using premium materials, designed to fit perfectly with your original game components. We ship across Canada and to the US with DDP — no surprise customs fees for US customers.
Have questions about compatibility with your edition or expansions? Contact us — we're happy to help.
Shop all Terraforming Mars upgrades →
Looking to upgrade another favorite? Check out our guide to The Best Quacks of Quedlinburg Upgrades.
