Mission: Red Planet FAQ
52 questions players ask · Updated Nov 12, 2026 · Full rulebook
General
Setup
Playing the Game
- What happens if you run out of astronauts?
- Does the first player choose which open dock a newly drawn ship goes to?
- When does a full docked ship launch?
- Do docked ships launch in round 10 before final scoring?
- When two players reveal the same character, who resolves first?
- Are played character cards visible to the other players?
- Does moving an astronaut into a zone with a facedown resource token reveal it?
Production Phase
- When players tie for a zone in a production phase, what happens to tokens that don't split evenly?
- Does majority in a zone mean more than half of all astronauts there?
- How do you win Mission: Red Planet, and how are victory points scored?
- Does a zone produce resources before an astronaut has revealed its resource token?
Final Scoring Phase
Event Cards
- When are Space Zombies and Surprise Move played relative to revealing discoveries?
- What does the Block of Ice action card do?
- Can a discovery card be assigned to Phobos?
- Does Phobos count as a zone for Space Zombies?
- When a discovery card is drawn, must it be placed on the board right away?
- Can you look at a facedown discovery card in play instead of drawing one?
- When you draw a discovery card, can you look at it before placing it?
- Can more than one discovery card be assigned to the same zone?
- How does the Ether Magnet discovery card affect ships that are still docked?
- How does the Analysis Error discovery card change resource tokens?
- Do astronauts sent to the Lost in Space Memorial by Native Resistance count for Eternal Fame?
- Does Surprise Move allow two moves in total, or two per astronaut?
Card Clarifications
- If the Saboteur fills a docked ship with its own astronaut, can it still destroy that ship?
- Can the Secret Agent force a full ship to launch?
- If the Secret Agent launches the only docked ship, can the Saboteur still destroy a ship?
- Can the Soldier kill astronauts in Syrtis Major or Valles Marineris?
- Can a Pilot redirect a ship that already has a destination token, including one placed by another Pilot?
- When the Soldier drops astronauts from Phobos, are they placed one at a time or all at once?
- Can the Soldier be played if you have no astronauts on Phobos?
- Does Femme Fatale take two actions or three?
- How does Femme Fatale's replace effect work?
- When one astronaut moves through several facedown resource zones, do you flip each token?
- How many moves does the Explorer give, and can they be split among astronauts?
- How does the Secret Agent place astronauts when only one docked ship is available?
- How many astronauts do the Pilot and the Secret Agent each place?
- Does Subterfuge pay out if only one player has astronauts in its zone?
- How are Even Ground and Uneven Ground scored when no astronauts remain in the zone at final scoring?
- When Mining Incident and Synergy both affect a zone, which one applies?
- How do you count astronauts for the Strategic Zones mission card?
- How many points does the Strategic Zones mission card score?
- Does a tie for 'the most' still complete a mission card?
- How does the Settlement mission card score?
- Must a character effect resolve fully, and what happens when it can't, such as with no docked ships?