Carrier Flagship

"Does extra damage. Can place other Monkeys on the upper decks of the ship and increases attack speed of all water based Monkeys and Monkey Aces."

- In-game description

 is the final upgrade of Path 1 for the Monkey Buccaneer in Bloons TD 6. It upgrades its mini planes to deal much more damage, pop any bloon type (excluding Camos, unless given camo detection), and each shoot one rapid stream of smarter darts. In addition, all water-based towers (Monkey Buccaneers, Monkey Subs, Admiral Brickell, water-placed Pat Fusty, or water-placed Sun Temple and its upgrades) and Monkey Aces attack ~18% faster. Two new small platforms are located on the upper decks of the Carrier Flagship, extending the tallness of other towers to partially ignore Line of Sight limits for monkeys placed on them.

Mini planes deal much greater damage overall compared to its previous upgrade. Darts pop any bloon type (except Camo, although 5-0-2 crosspath allows popping of Camos), and its homing anti-MOAB missiles become even stronger (every 1.5s, 4 pierce, 30 damage). The front-firing darts of each plane will now fire only one rapid stream of darts, although these darts have increased pierce (+5 per dart, 14 pierce per dart overall), extra damage (+1 per dart, +3 on top against Ceramics), and will aim at bloons rather than firing forward.

It costs $21,250 on Easy, $25,000 on Medium, $27,000 on Hard and $30,000 on Impoppable.

Appearance
The Carrier Flagship becomes a darker blue-grey compared to Aircraft Carrier. The Monkey disappears, as well as the blue flag at the top of the island. The visual size of the ship is much longer, and gains a second island on top of the hanger covering the runway. Both islands have an "m" in a circle at the top, similar to a helipad, and can support up to a medium-sized tower each.

The accompanying biplanes' color scheme change from green, blue, yellow to black, red, yellow. The top wing gains two additional red fins.

Platform Accommodations
Carrier Flagship can fit up to two land towers of medium-sized footprint or smaller on its platforms.

The following towers can be placed on Carrier Flagship's platforms: Dart Monkey, Boomerang Monkey, Tack Shooter, Ice Monkey, Glue Gunner, Bomb Shooter, Sniper Monkey, Dartling Gunner, Wizard Monkey, Ninja Monkey, Alchemist, Druid, Engineer Monkey, and Heroes (excluding Captain Churchill, Pat Fusty, and Admiral Brickell).

The following towers cannot be placed on Carrier Flagship's platforms: Monkey Sub, Monkey Buccaneer, Mortar Monkey, Monkey Ace, Heli Pilot, Super Monkey, Banana Farm, Spike Factory, Monkey Village, Cave Monkey (via Redeploy ability from Support Chinook or Special Poperations), Captain Churchill, Pat Fusty, and Admiral Brickell.

Summary
Combining decent overall damage and its unique utilities, Carrier Flagship is an effective Tier 5 upgrade overall compared to its price. Although its planes do not get affected by the Alchemist buffs, its main sources of benefit are more from two specialties: the global attack speed bonuses to water-based towers and Monkey Aces, and its two platforms where land towers can be placed. It can be used with Arctic Wind to "terraform" water for providing expansion of land space to purchase Monkey Villages or other nearby support towers.

Carrier Flagship, while rarely appearing as a meta CHIMPS tower on most maps, makes a notable appearance on Flooded Valley, particularly when paired with Pat Fusty and The Tack Zone. In particular, The Tack Zone being placed in the middle of the track via the Flagship's platforms optimizes its MOAB-class popping power. However, care should be taken to visualize where the platforms would go prior to upgrading, as otherwise there will be problems with accidental occupation by other towers via strange bugs; there is a bug where Fusty blocks placement for Tack Zone despite him not being actually placed on top of the platforms.

For 2TC, Carrier Flagship can solo much of mid-game when paired with another tower. Carrier Flagship + Wizard Lord Phoenix was one of the first combos with Carrier Flagship.

Tips

 * Avoid placing the Flagship too far upward on the screen, or else there is no room for the towers to placed on.
 * Since Carrier Flagships cannot be moved by Support Chinooks, it is important to place the Flagship somewhere other towers don't need to be placed.
 * The Carrier Flagship can be quite useful on maps with large amounts of water due to its ability to increase attack speed of all water placed towers. However it not as viable for most Advanced or Expert Maps such as Pat's Pond or #Ouch, but it is notable for being powerful on Flooded Valley.
 * Snipers can take special advantage of the platforms, as these platforms are entirely unaffected by Line of Sight upon placement on such high ground, and they don't have visible projectiles that may accidentally hit obstacles, which otherwise would destroy the projectiles.
 * For the maps Town Center, Lotus Island, Spillway, and Peninsula, only the upper platform is high enough for a sniper to shoot over all obstacles.
 * For the maps Bazaar and High Finance, both platforms are high enough.
 * Neither platform is high enough to shoot over the mangrove trees on Bloonarius Prime.
 * In CHIMPS, Carrier Flagship sees its highest use on Flooded Valley, especially when paired with an Arctic Wind to provide extra space for Monkey Villages and other support.
 * The better crosspath for Carrier Flagship is generally not too important, although a few crosspaths will make it considerably better. 5-2-0 has stronger overall DPS because of the fast-attacking grapes from Grape Shot or Hot Shot. 5-0-2 improves the pierce and speed of all projectiles including ace planes, as well as granting camo detection.
 * When being crosspathed, upgraded to Grape Shot, Hot Shot, Long Range or Crow's Nest, the planes will reset and appear to come out of the flagship once more. This may be detrimental if the Flagship is a major part of the player's defense.
 * Be sure to visualize where the platforms will be placed before upgrading to Carrier Flagship. Too close and there could be strange platform-and-footprint-related bugs, too far and important buffs such as Pat Fusty's Rallying Roar would be too far.

Bugs

 * In some patches, Carrier Flagship platforms may fail to allow any towers placed on them to bypass Line of Sight restrictions. Though they see over obstacles, it does not allow their projectiles to pass over obstacles, meaning they will collide and not deal any damage. This has been recorded to occur in Version 11.0 and Version 14.0. This also occurs on 17.0, although it works in Version 18.0.
 * Due to a bug relating to the property that any towers placed on top of the Carrier being able to see over obstacles, any tower placed on top that is then moved off via a Support Chinook is able to see through obstacles even when they are on the ground.
 * At one point, a Chinook and the Carrier made it possible to stack an infinite amount of applicable towers in one space. If the Carrier Flagship is sold before the Support Chinook drops off a tower onto a vacant platform, it will still be placed at the set map coordinates, regardless of validity.

Trivia

 * Strangely, on the upgrade icon and insta, there are flags on top of it but in-game, there is only the platforms.
 * As with Aircraft Carrier, when looked closely the Carrier Flagship also shoots its original Destroyer attack.
 * It also will shoot grapes too if Path 2 upgrades are added, but it's easily noticeable.
 * A bug in Version 13.0 made it so if a Version 12.0 save was loaded in 13.0, Carrier Flagship would have 6 planes instead of 3. This allowed a 2 Towers C.H.I.M.P.S. with Blooncineration to be completed. Since it is not possible to play earlier versions of BTD6 after up to a week after release of a new update, this combo is now impossible as of a few days after Version 13.0.
 * Before Version 18.0, the old description was "Does extra damage. Can place other Monkeys on the upper decks of the ship, increases attack speed of all water based Monkeys." but has since been changed to mention Monkey Aces. One minor grammatical change was also implemented as well.
 * It is possible to win 4-Player Co-Op CHIMPS with 4 Carrier Flagships bought before Round 100.
 * If the Small Monkey Towers Option or Big Monkey Towers Option is enabled, the extra tower placement is no longer tied to the model. Players will have to search around to find the spots.