Overclock (BTD6)

"Overclock Ability: Target another tower to supercharge its attack speed for a short time."

- In-game description

Overclock is the 4th upgrade of Path 2 for the Engineer Monkey in Bloons TD 6. It comes with an ability that increases the attack speed of the target tower by ~66.6% (reduces attack cooldown by 40%) for a variant amount of time. If given to a Monkey Village, it also receives a +25% range boost to a Monkey Village for the duration. When given to a Banana Farm, its income production is boosted; the number of bananas produced per round or cash added by a Monkey Bank or a Marketplace is is increased by 1.66x, rounded up.

Duration for Overclock in combination with normal towers depends on the boosted tower's upgrade of the highest tier. Duration lasts for the following tiers:
 * Base tower: 105 seconds (233% uptime)
 * Tier 1: 90 seconds (200% uptime)
 * Tier 2: 75 seconds (167% uptime)
 * Tier 3: 60 seconds (133% uptime)
 * Tier 4: 45 seconds (100% uptime)
 * Tier 5: 30 seconds (67% uptime)

In combination with Heroes, however, the "tier" mechanics works in a different way, where every 4th level counts as a higher tier from Tier 0, up to Tier 5 with Level 20.

There is a cooldown of 45 seconds for each Overclock usage.

In addition, Overclock's main attack increases from 3 pierce to 15 pierce (20 if crosspathed with Oversize Nails) and its nailgun projectile speed is doubled.

It costs $11,475 on Easy, $13,500 on Medium, $14,580 on Hard, and $16,200 on Impoppable.

Appearance
An Engineer with the Overclock upgrade exchanges his usual foam dispensing unit with a carryable white electric-powered machine with two amplifier drums. His nailgun is more techno-futuristic, as with the rest of his attire. His helmet has the most noticeable change, which now has a dark grey band with a neon-colored PCB visual pattern along the middle of his helmet. He also wears two grey gauntlets patterned with circle-shaped neon visual patterns. The official upgrade portrait for Overclock shows the monkey holding his fist up, appearingly empowered by his electrically active gadgets.

Summary
Overclock is one of the most essential support towers for the mid-to-late game, notably on both Boss Bloon Events and CHIMPS. For a relatively low cost, it can be used to boost attack speed of any tower by up to ~66.6%, or increase range by 25% for Monkey Villages or Banana Farm income by 66%. With exception of non-damaging Villages and Farms, this ability grants a substantial attack speed boost for whichever tower is targeted, improving that tower's total DPS by a large margin. The range boosts for Villages and income boosts for Farms can be handy to use, but in most situations it is simply better to apply the ability onto a DPS tower instead of Villages or Farms. Exceptions to this rule are usually to apply maximum income greed, for Boss Bloon Events in particular, whether it be to buff the range of a pre-built Monkeyopolis or to maximize the strength of the strongest direct-income Farm.

Most of the time on CHIMPS, the Overclock ability should be used on the tower that performs the highest DPS, in order to make the most of its attack speed boosts. Note that Tier 5 towers or Level 20 Heroes may require more than one Overclock in order to have full uptime, but it is usually safe otherwise to keep on using the ability whenever it becomes available.

Tips

 * Good candidates for use of Overclock are usually the highest DPS towers. These will usually be singular powerful high-DPS towers such as Apache Prime or Perma Charge.
 * Overclock amplifies buffs previously on the target tower, such as effectively doubling the effectiveness of Poplust on Avatar of Wrath.
 * However, note that Alchemist buffs wear out more quickly under Overclock.
 * This matters for The Tack Zone when Pat Fusty's Rallying Roar is down.
 * Unless it's for improving mid-game potential, crosspathing Overclock is generally unneeded. But if crosspathing is desired, Path 1 crosspath is useful for extra overall blimp damage and Path 3 crosspath for utilizing its in-built extra bloon popping power. Bear in mind that 2-4-0 is prone to accidental Overclock targeting to the Engineer's sentries, so beware of this.
 * 0-4-2 Overclock is far stronger in the mid-game due to a much higher pierce Pin, but otherwise, crosspathing shouldn't matter too much in the long-run.
 * 2-4-0 Overclock's sentries deal more MOAB-class damage because of the Deconstruction upgrade, but otherwise statistically identical to a 2-2-0 Engineer's sentries.
 * It costs $16580 ($14580 + $865 + $380 + $270 + $485) on Hard to afford a 0-4-0 Overclock.
 * Because of the new Overclock tier-based duration rework in Version 21.0, the Overclock ability is very strong with any tower up to Tier 4, as there is pretty much 100% uptime for said ability, with the 45 second cooldown versus the 45 second duration.
 * The best hero candidate for Overclock is Captain Churchill, as he levels slowly but is incredibly powerful compared to his level.
 * Overclock plus Banana Farm is usually not very cost-effective income production unless applied onto Banana Research Facility, Banana Central, Central Market, or Monkey Wall Street.
 * If the defenses appear safe even without Overclock, take attention off the main DPS tower(s) and apply it onto the strongest Banana Farm(s) until it seems it will be needed for DPS again.
 * Adding Overclock to Monkey Banks is no better than adding it to Marketplace or Banana Plantation, as only the pockets of cash are boosted by the ability. However, these extra pockets of cash can be influenced by interest, so adding the boost can be more worth it in some cases.
 * Despite having a function similar to a Banana Farm, Monkeyopolis will only receive the range buff all villages receive. It will not gain the +66% extra production speed. However, the range boost could be used onto a Monkey City to fit more Banana Farms into its radius prior to upgrading to Monkeyopolis, allowing it to absorb more Farms prior to purchase.
 * The best farm to buff is Banana Central, while the second-best and third-best are Banana Research Facility and Central Market or Monkey Wall Street, respectively. This is key for Boss Bloon Events in order to receive maximum income gain.
 * An Engineer with Overclock can actually Overclock itself for boosted attack speed. This isn't particularly useful in most games, but it may be a lifesaver in extreme challenges, such as specific 2TCs.

Sounds
When deploying Cleansing Foam:
 * [foam bubbling]
 * [foam bubbling]
 * [foam bubbling]
 * [foam bubbling]

When activating Overclock Ability:
 * [Engine starting]

Trivia

 * In BTD6, the Overclocked towers are indicated by green orbiting comets of energy rotating anticlockwise. Additionally, there is a mechanical "boost" sound effect for overclocking a tower, unlike in BTD5 generation games.
 * In BTD6, Overclock can overclock itself, similar to BMC Flash and BTD5 Deluxe. In BTD5 Mobile and other mobile versions, Overclock cannot overclock itself.
 * The Version 13.0 patch notes stated that Overclock's attack speed boost was nerfed from +100% to +66%, but it was incorrectly unimplemented until Version 14.0, where Ninja Kiwi once again reiterated the Overclock nerf, although in the second time they provided the wrong nerfed speed boost in the Version 14.0 patch notes.
 * Before Version 16.0, Tech Bot is not able to target an Overclock Engineer. But it was still possible to use it on an Ultraboost Engineer, and it will automatically reapply the ability on the previous targetted tower.
 * Starting in Version 16.0, Overclock can be linked by a Tech Bot. It will work in the same way as a linked Ultraboost.