With the employment of a novel octopole end plug scheme, we examine the plasma engineering design of MINIMARS, a small compact fusion reactor based on the tandem mirror principle. With a net electric output of 600 MW/sub e/, MINIMARS is expressly designed for short construction times, factory built modules, and a passively safe blanket system. We show that the compact octopole/mantle provides several distinct improvements over the more conventional quadrupole (yin-yang) end plugs and enables ignition to be obtained with much shorter central cell length. In this way we can design economic small reactors which will minimize utility financial risk and provide attractive alternatives to the conventional larger fusion plants encountered to date.