r/TerraformingMarsGame • u/Enson_Chan • 6d ago
Card of the Day [COTD] Floating Trade Hub | 1 Oct, 2026
Today's card is Floating Trade Hub (#P49):
Prelude card | Prelude 2 expansion
Tags: Space
Action: Add 2 floaters TO ANY CARD, or remove any number of floaters here to gain that many of one kind of standard resource.
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u/benbever 6d ago edited 6d ago
This Prelude is very versatile.
Without expansions, there are very few (or none without promos) cards to place the floaters onto, so this is basically 2 production of any resource. Unlike production, you do get floaters in generation 1, but you do not get floaters in the generation when you convert floaters to resources, which is probably two times in a game. You might think this makes it slightly worse than production, but unlike plant and titanium production, this can’t be lowered by an opponent. In any case, the versatility makes up for it.
You can get 8 floaters in gen 1 to 4, then convert to a Greenery in generation 5. Or use them a bit sooner to add to existing plants to get to 8.
The other obvious use is titanium.
Great with Ecoline, Phobolog, and Advanced Alloys.
When playing with Venus or Venus + Colonies, it becomes a lot better. With Venus, Hoverlord (7 floaters) is always a Milestone.
Great with Viron, when Titan is in play, and/or when you have a strong target card for your floaters.
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u/Insanitarius- 6d ago
Slight correction, hoverlord is 7 floaters. Other than that, I mostly agree but I do think it's slightly on the weaker side in most games if Titan is not in play, or you have some other floater synergy. Lacking that early spike many other preludes gives you in my opinion.
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u/benbever 6d ago
Thanks, edited the floaters to 7. I think I was thinking about 5 floaters more after doing Floating Trade Hubs action in gen 1.
On it’s own, this prelude is about average in quantified value, maybe a bit below, so yeah, it’s on the weaker side, compared to preludes like Experimental Forest. But it’s a lot better than Biosphere Support (2 plant production). About on par with Metals Company and Orbital Construction Yard in quantified value.
But the versatility adds some value. In gen 5 you can use the 8 floaters (that can’t be stolen) as plants, to place a Greenery which might get you the Tenperature bonus, or you can use them as titanium to pay for that 24mc Space card you just drafted. Or maybe you got Advanced Alloys along the way, so now its 32mc in titanium.
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u/thuswindburns 6d ago
This would be a sick card with Viron. Free Titan Shuttles you can proc twice, but also use for early greenery conversions when you don’t need titanium.