Monkey Sub (BTD6)

"Shoots homing torp-e-darts at nearby Bloons. Must be placed in water."

- In-game description

Monkey Sub is a Military-class tower in Bloons TD 6. The tower retains its name and role from the Bloons TD 5 Generation, with significant additions. It received a select few teasers prior to the game's release, one of them being an in-game showcase of a 2-0-0 Sub on Spice Islands and Streambed interacting with Line of Sight.

Monkey Subs shoot homing darts with moderate seeking every 0.75s, popping up to two bloons each by default. It can gain unique benefits that greatly assist its overall cost-effective power, including a unique extensible range upgrade, the option to submerge, and unstoppable missile-launching at incoming blimps. It is also one of two non-hero water towers in the game, the other being Monkey Buccaneer.

It costs $275 on Easy, $325 on Medium, $350 on Hard, and $390 on Impoppable by default.

Description
The Monkey Sub makes a return in BTD6. It can be upgraded as a support tower or as an attack tower. It has also received a substantially greater choice of support/attack capabilities, including an upgrade that supports other Subs.

Path 1 focuses on range & support. Starting off with it gaining longer range & capability to use another tower's range as its own range, before converting itself into a support tower (which can still unsubmerge and attack using its guns), capable of decamoing bloons, popping bloons and reducing nearby water tower cooldowns. With its Tier 5, it has the capability to reduce all cooldowns, and can even affect a hero's levelling speed.

Path 2 focuses on Pierce & later on, dealing huge damage to MOAB Class bloons, starting off with an upgrade to the Sub's pierce & an upgrade that makes all darts pop frozen and lead bloons. Later on it becomes a submarine, capable of shooting missiles that deal extra damage to Ceramics & MOAB Class bloons, with the subs range increasing noticeably. It then gains an ability that can deal massive damage to a target bloon, plus deals splash damage to all bloons in its explosion radius. The Tier 5 retains said ability, can launch it with a shorter cooldown, with its missile attacks being launched at a much faster pace, dealing nearly twice the damage compared to what they did before, and gaining another attack which is passively launches hugely damaging missiles when a MOAB Class bloon enters the screen.

Path 3 focuses on attack speed. Starting off with the Sub gaining another gun, and gaining darts that can split into multiple projectiles. It then gains a third gun, before gaining special darts that can deal extra damage to MOAB Class & Ceramic bloons, much like the middle path does, except with their darts instead of using another projectile. Its Tier 5 further improves its own attack speed, damage, and gives extra damage and pierce to all other subs in its radius.

Target Priorities
Monkey Subs use the four basic target priorities (First, Last, Close, Strong) to target at bloons, and can gain access to the Submerge target priority once the Submerge and Support upgrade is bought. The following are a list of target priorities a Sub can use:


 * Submerge: Submerges the submarine, letting it create only submersible attacks instead of its other attacks. Initially gains only decamo, but can also gain additional benefits upon upgrading.

Monkey Sub's upgrades interact with target priorities in different ways:
 * Advanced Intel extends its range to see the range of other towers, which modifies how its target priorities would aim as if the extensive range is part of the Sub's range.
 * Ballistic Missile's missiles trigger when bloons are detected within range and each missile subsequently targets a bloon based on the Sub's target priority at the time of launch.
 * First Strike Capability's ability is locked on Strong and affects any bloon on screen no matter where it is.
 * Pre-Emptive Strike's passive ability always targets incoming blimps spawned from the entrance(s).
 * Sub Commander's buff affects all Monkey Subs within range, or all with "Sub Admiral" MK.

Total Costs


Monkey Knowledge
This section displays Monkey Knowledge that has effects on a Monkey Sub and its changes when compared to one by default:
 * NavalUpgradesIcon.png Naval Upgrades: All Monkey Subs get +1 pierce.
 * Base pierce increased from 2 → 3.
 * EliteMilitaryTrainingIcon.png Elite Military Training: All Military Monkeys get a one-off +1000 XP and earn XP in-game 5% faster permanently.
 * BreakingBallisticIcon.png Breaking Ballistic: Ballistic Missiles do +1 damage to Ceramic Bloons.
 * Base Ballistic Missile attack will deal 6 damage instead of 5 versus Ceramic Bloons.
 * QuadBurstIcon.png Quad Burst: Airburst Darts split into 4 instead of 3.
 * FlankingManeuversIcon.png Flanking Maneuvers: Attacks 10% faster when set targeting priority to "Last".
 * BeneathTheWavesIcon.png Sub Admiral: Sub Commander affects all Monkey Subs on screen.
 * MilitaryConscriptionIcon.png Military Conscription: First military tower costs only ⅔ of the original cost.
 * Monkey Sub base cost from $275, $325, $350, and $390 → $185, $220, $235, and $260 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
 * AdvancedLogisticsIcon.png Advanced Logistics: All Military Monkeys base costs reduced by 5%.
 * Monkey Sub base cost from $275, $325, $350, and $390 → $260, $310, $335, and $370 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
 * If Military Conscription is also enabled, the final cost will be $170, $200, $220, and $240.
 * MonkeyEducationIcon.png Monkey Education: All Monkeys XP earn rate increased by 8%.
 * BetterSellDealsIcon.png Better Sell Deals: All Monkeys sell for 5% more.
 * Increases sell potency from 70% to 75%.
 * VeteranMonkeyTrainingIcon.png Veteran Monkey Training: All Monkeys reload time reduced by 3%.
 * GlobalAbilityCooldownsIcon.png Global Ability Cooldowns: All Ability cooldowns for all Monkeys reduced by 3%.

Sounds
When placed:
 * [submarine whistle]
 * [submarine whistle]

When changing to Submerge target priority:
 * [Sonar pulse]

When switching from Submerge to other priorities:
 * [Wave sound]

When activating First Strike Capability:
 * [Launching]

Trivia

 * Monkey Sub has the lowest base cost of any Military Monkey in the game, at just $325 on Medium.
 * According to Ninja Kiwi's November 12th 2021 blog, Monkey Subs and Monkey Buccaneers have disputes over what they both consider to be the best way to detect camo. Subs consider submersion as superior, while Buccaneers consider use of crow's nests to work better.
 * The hole on the sub from which the missiles emerge in X-3-X, X-4-X, and X-5-X subs is textured, but is a much lower resolution than most other textures in the game.