Monkey Ace

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

- Bloons Tower Defense 4 Description

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

- Round 38 on Bloons Tower Defense 4

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

- Bloons Tower Defense 5 Description

The Monkey Ace is a moving unit operated by a monkey that debuted in Bloons Tower Defense 4. It also appears in its Expansion, Bloons Tower Defense 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. 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).

The Monkey Ace has accuracy issues due to its wild fire, 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.

Rate of fire (BTD4): Un-upgraded: 25 SPM (shots per minute) Rapid Fire: 40 SPM Operation: Dart Storm: 50 SPM

Bloons Tower Defense 4 Upgrades
Pineapple Express - Drops highly explosive Pineapples

The Monkey Ace begins dropping Pineapples for extra popping power. $170/$200/$215.

Spy Plane - Allows towers near Monkey Ace to detect Camo Bloons

All Tower near the Monkey Ace while patroling can detect Camo Bloons. $300/$350/$380

Rapid Fire - Increases attack rate

Shoots darts and drops Pineapples faster. $595/$700/$755

Operation: Dart Storm - Our darts will block out the sun.

Shoots 16 darts at a time instead of 8. Also increasing shooting and dropping rate. $2975/$3500/$3780

Total Selling Price: $4805/$5650/$6100

Bloons Tower Defense 5 Upgrades
 

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.
 * 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.
 * 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 an another ace, that you even upgrade to 4/4 (Seriously), through you would just have a spectre with the Ground Zero ability. 4_4_Monkey_Ace.png

Trivia
Operation: Dart Storm and Ground Zero are like the B-2. In addition, Spectre is just like the real AC-130.
 * This tower seems to be based off of the Sopwith Camel, a British World War One fighter plane.
 * 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
 * In Bloons TD 5, the Pineapple Present does not drop faster for 2 upgrades (Rapid Fire and Operation: Dart Storm).
 * This is the first moving tower in the BTD series, with the second being the Heli Pilot.
 * This tower is deadly in mass amounts, especially if upgraded to tier 3.
 * An Operation: Dart Storm appears dropping a crate of cash in BTD5, when the player activates the Supply Drop ability.
 * Coincidentally or intentionally, the German word for 'Plane' is 'Flugzeug', and the hot key to select the Monkey Ace is F.
 * This is most likely coincidental and unintended because the hot key selection panel works using the 'QWERTY' system and the Monkey Ace falls on 'F'.
 * In Bloons TD 4, the pineapples will drop every time the plane shoots, no matter what upgrade. While in Bloons TD 5, it will normally just drop one Pineapple every 3 seconds regardless of further upgrades.
 * 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.
 * The Premium Upgrade Grilled Pineapples makes the Pineapples that the Monkey Ace drop explode after 1 second as well.
 * Ground Zero, one of the last upgrades for Monkey Aces, is pretty useful in further levels since 2 of them can instantly pop B.F.B.s, just leaving you with the 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 monkey ace upgrade 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 off of real planes, both nicknamed after ghosts.
 * 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.
 * The name and shape of the "Spectre" Upgrade are references to the Gunship AC-130H Spectre.
 * 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.
 * This is one of few Bloons power-ups that is inspired by the Tower defense counterpart as opposed to vice-versa.
 * 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.