Monkey Ace (pre-BTD6)

"Flies above the ground shooting volleys of high-pierce darts."

- Bloons TD 6 description

The Monkey Ace is a moving unit operated by a monkey that debuted in Bloons TD 4. It also appears in its Expansion, Bloons TD 5, and Bloons 2. In BTD4 and BTD5, it costs $765 on Easy, $900 on Medium, and $970 on Hard. It will automatically fire at the Bloons. When the player places it on the screen, it will automatically fly in a figure-eight form and has infinite Range. However, in BTD5, the player can switch the Monkey Ace's route between an 8 shape, an &infin; (infinity symbol) shape, and an O shape that encircles the runway. The O shape is usually most efficient, as the monkey ace does not move out of the screen (unless you place it near a corner). In BTD6, the Ace was given the option to buy an upgrade to have a centered path that is a circular path that is centered on the middle of the map. It is slightly bigger than the regular O pattern.

The Monkey Ace has accuracy issues due to its wildfire but can become devastating if Bloons fill up the screen, which will make hitting them with the high popping power very easy regardless. Remember to have ally towers cripple the more sturdy threats such as Lead and Regen Bloons, and clean up anything that sneaks through as well.

In Bloons TD 4, the Monkey Ace can be placed anywhere. However, in Bloons TD 5, the Monkey Ace has a runway, so the player has to place the runway on land.

Game appearances
Monkey Ace makes up to 10 appearances:

Bloons 2
Monkey Aces make another appearance here. They pop Bloons that they fly through. The player must pop a Monkey Ace Bloon to give the monkey 2 flags, allowing the player to send them to pop Bloons. If the Monkey Ace hits a wall, it will explode, and the pilot will parachute down. The explosion will not pop any Bloons. When the Reverse Gravity Bloon is popped, the plane flies upside down, and the pilot parachutes up when it crashes.

Glitches

 * In BTD5, if you place a Monkey ace and switch from "vertical 8" circling to "round" circling, sometimes the Ace will indefinitely fly towards the top right, though eventually it will re-adjust and go back to normal.
 * Monkey Ace landing sites can be placed more closely together when below other landing sites than when on top. The landing sites also go slightly right when placed down (BTD5 Flash)
 * In BTD5 the ace's artwork shows a red cone but in the actual tower it's blue and in BMC Mobile if it's flying above your city it's green.
 * This reverses when upgraded to Pineapple Present, the artwork shows it has a blue cone, while the actual tower has a red cone.
 * (BTD5 Flash)You can glitch the Monkey Ace by buying one, this should take you so you can upgrade whenever you want, hover over the ace so it has white outlines on it, then, press backspace (this will sell the tower) and left-click your mouse again as fast as possible, then this should take you to a Monkey Ace with no picture, that you can upgrade, upgrade the Ace (you cannot use the upgrade hotkeys, nothing happens), and you will notice that there is another ace, that you even upgrade to 4/4 (Seriously), through you would just have a spectre with the Ground Zero ability. This glitch has been fixed.
 * In BTD Battles, you can put a monkey fort next to the 4-x/Spectre Ace, and it will give +1 pierce to the missiles. This gives an advantage because the missiles deal 2 damage in the explosion radius, but if it pierces through, it will do another explosion, which also deals 2 damage, and if a bloon is in both explosion's radius, it will deal 4 damage to that bloon.

Differences Between BTD5 Flash and BTD5 Mobile

 * The base cost of Monkey Ace is more expensive ($900 → $925).
 * Pineapples from Pineapple Present have smaller explosions.
 * Ground Zero yields more cash when used against Ceramic Bloons.
 * Spectre bomb explosions duplicate when its landing base is under a Monkey Fort.

Update History (Bloons TD Battles Mobile)
In general, Monkey Ace is hardly buffed or nerfed in updates, but is still not very popular early game, due to its frequent missing as a lower-tier tower. However, Monkey Ace can be more useful in combination with other towers, as it does help in reducing the overload of Bloons. Whenever used, most players tend to aim towards purchasing Operation: Dart Storm, in which they could also go towards Ground Zero which could be very useful against MOAB-Class Bloons.

There are very few widely used Monkey Ace strategies, but one very popular strategy that uses Monkey Ace is Dart-Farm-Ace, the most popular loadout in the game, which is especially advantageous for doing the large-scale bloon cleanup. Another popular loadout that uses the Monkey Ace is Heli-Farm-Ace, with some considering it to be the new meta when update 4.6 came out.

Tower Tips
They are extremely expensive so it is not a good choice for early games.
 * The monkey ace's purpose is to inflict great damage when bloons totally cover the track. However, it won't do much when bloons cover the track as the bloons would quickly reach the end and kill you.
 * Monkey Ace is quite useless until you get a tier 3 upgrade, as they often miss.

Quotes
"Monkey Aces rule the skies, and their wide area attacks are good for central track placement. Powerful upgrades include: Neva-Miss Targeting, Dart Storm, Spectre, Ground Zero."

- BMC Flash description

"The only unit that moves, the Monkey Ace patrols the skies above the action, regularly strafing the area with powerful piercing darts."

- Bloons TD 4 Description

"Monkey Aces are best suited to more spread out tracks where they can inflict the most poppage."

- Round 38 on Bloons TD 4

"Patrols the skies above the action, regularly strafing the area with powerful darts in 8 directions."

- Bloons TD 5 Description

"Monkey Ace patrols the skies above the action regularly shooting 8 powerful darts in all directions. Good for thinning out bloon formations."

- Description upon unlocking in BTD4

Trivia

 * This tower seems to be based on the Sopwith Camel, a British World War One fighter plane. In Bloons TD 4, it looks similar to a Stratolaunch carrier plane (but is most likely just a Sopwith Camel).
 * This is the first moving tower in the BTD series, with the second being the Heli Pilot.
 * In Bloons TD 4, the Rapid Fire upgraded plane is very similar to the P-38 Lightning, while the monkey ace in Bloons TD 5 Operation: Dart Storm and Ground Zero are like the F-117 or The B-2 spirit. In addition, Spectre is just like a real AC-130.
 * It is confirmed in Bloons Monkey City that the Spectre is based on the AC-130 as the special building required to unlock it is called the AC130 Construction Hangar.
 * In Bloons TD 4, the pineapples will drop every time the plane shoots, no matter what upgrade. While in Bloons TD 5, it will just drop one Pineapple every 3 seconds, but some upgrades slightly decrease the time between drops.
 * An Operation: Dart Storm appears dropping a crate of cash in BTD5 and in BTD6 when the player activates the Supply Drop ability.
 * This is one of few Bloons power-ups that is inspired by the Tower Defense counterpart as opposed to vice-versa.

Specific to BTD4

 * It is possible to beat all rounds in Bloons TD 4 by filling the screen with Monkey Aces upgraded once; however, this will create lots of lag and takes a long time as Aces in BTD4, Aces do not have a specified tower and you have to click on the exact plane you wish to upgrade.

Specific to BTD5

 * In Bloons TD 5, the Pineapple Present drops faster for 2 upgrades (Rapid Fire and Operation: Dart Storm).
 * This tower is deadly in mass amounts, especially if upgraded to tier 3.
 * The Premium Upgrade Grilled Pineapples makes the Pineapples that the Monkey Ace drop explodes after 1 second as well.
 * Ground Zero, one of the last upgrades for the Monkey Ace, is very useful in higher levels since 2 of them can instantly pop B.F.B.s, leaving just M.O.A.B.s. The player will still need a way to pop Z.O.M.G.s, though.
 * In BTD5, the icon for the Spectre shows the ace dropping 2 bombs with words on both bombs that are hard to read, the first saying "From: Ace" and the second saying "To: Bloons".
 * Both of the final upgrades are based on real planes, the AC-130, and the B-2 Spirit Bomber for the Spectre and the Ground Zero respectively.
 * In BTD5 Deluxe, the Ground Zero Ability does 1,000 damage instead of 350, instantly popping B.F.B.s. It also does 1,000 damage in BTD Battles.
 * Despite the Monkey Ace having no set target (with the exception of Neva-Miss Targeting) the volley of darts will still not hit camo bloons without the Spy Plane upgrade.
 * In Bloons Monkey City, Darts from Neva-Miss Targeting will target Camo bloons but will not pop them without the Spy Plane upgrade.
 * 2 Spectres can take out infinite Ceramics on most tracks.
 * The Monkey ace is a biplane. Biplanes have two wings stacked on top of each other and they are connected by wires and struts to make one strong structure. The ace becomes a monoplane when at least x/3 or is 4/x.
 * In Bloons Monkey City, there is a glitch that makes the Monkey Ace fly off the screen to switch back to the track you've selected when alternating between the 8 pattern and the O pattern. It comes back around when the pattern is changed, though.Glitch-0.png
 * In BTD5, it attacks in a way similar to the Dartling Gun; between rounds, when there are no bloons coming, the Monkey Ace will not shoot darts.