Bloon Trap (BTDB2)

"Bloon trap captures bloons until full. Tap to empty full trap for cash."

- BTDB2 Mobile description

"Bloon trap captures bloons until full. Click to empty full trap for cash."

- BTDB2 Steam description

Bloon Trap is the 4th upgrade of Path 3 for the Engineer Monkey in Bloons TD Battles 2. It is similar to its BTD6 counterpart, with noticeable differences. Traps hold 650 RBE, and manually collected traps earn exactly $500 each. Traps can autocollect but only after ~15 seconds. Despite the description of the upgrade, hovering over the trap collects the trap.

It costs $3,500, and is unlocked with 11,000 XP.

Summary
Bloon Trap can be used to both syphon the opponent's eco sends and to instantly destroy bloons that touch it. It works best placed on either the front of the sent lane or the back of the track, depending on needs. Also account for Pin with its general cleanup, as with Double Gun. Spawncamping the entrance is the best way to generate the maximum income from Bloon Traps.

General Tips

 * Uncrosspathed Bloon Trap is generally better to start off as a trapping option, as the sentries are almost useless at damage, and Path 2's unique benefits from BTD6 are not present in Battles 2. 2-0-4 Bloon Trap's faster trapping rate is only worth if the traps spawncamp any entrance, which should be done in almost all cases anyway.
 * Bloon Trap is generally considered the better Tier 4 unlock for Engineer, although Sentry Expert's multiple sentry variants comes at a close second.
 * Be sure to prepare to bring the pointer/cursor close to the trap immediately once the trap is full, and doing so in advance helps ensure maximum uptime of the traps between cycles.

Battle Tips

 * [1.0.5] With sufficient bloon eco management, one can get a 0-0-4 Bloon Trap by between Round 5-6. One can rake up both 400+ Eco and a Bloon Trap if successful.

Countermeasures

 * The best bloon sends against Bloon Trap are spaced pinks when it comes to eco/RBE. However, many times it is impossible to reliably circumvent Bloon Trap, especially if the player's only source of income is through bloon sends.
 * Do not ever send grouped whites and grouped blacks against Bloon Traps during the midgame and solely rely on Grouped Yellows and Grouped Pinks if you need to send bloons out past Round 13.
 * Banana Farms are by far the best counter to early Bloon Traps, due to being rather efficient in the early and mid rounds of the game and thus minimizing the amount of bloons sent out without losing out on cash.
 * Jungle's Bounty is also a rather reliable counter if mixed with grouped Reds, grouped Blues and spaced Pinks.
 * Supply Drop and Support Chinook are much harder to set up early but can still prove to be useful past Round 13.
 * Rushes may force the opponent to sell their Bloon Trap. If this creates an opening, use the opportunity to send out Bloons for eco, as Yellows, Whites, Blacks and Pinks are still more cost-efficient than the aforementioned alternate eco options.

Bugs

 * Current
 * [1.0.5, Season 2] If a UFO BAD passes over a Bloon Trap, the game will crash. It is known to crash on the Mobile and Steam versions. The same applies to Mortar Mastery ZOMG and Mauler MOAB (Bomb Mastery MOAB). Other blimp skins aren't confirmed yet.
 * [1.0.5] Frozen Bloons mess up with the Bloon Trap money generation calculations, resulting in less than $700 cash per collection.

none
 * Patched

Trivia

 * Alongside XXXL Trap in Battles 2, Bloon Trap in Battles 2 is the only variant of Bloon Trap that always produces a fixed amount of cash.