Banana Central

"You want Banana? We have Banana!"

- BTD6

Banana Central is the final upgrade of Path 1 for the Banana Farm in Bloons TD 6. It produces 5 larger crates of Banana worth $1200 each per round, as well as allowing all Banana Research Facility crates to become worth 25% more ($375). With the Valuable Bananas crosspath, the crates that spawn from the Banana Central are worth $1500 instead of $1200.

It costs $85,000 on Easy, $100,000 on Medium, $108,000 on Hard, and $120,000 on Impoppable.

Description
Banana Central is an enlarged factory of bananas. The building appears more futuristic than the preceding Banana Research Facility upgrade (which appears more industrial), with features such as a glass dome that protects the banana repository. When Path 2 upgrades are bought, the bananas and the Banana Central logo turn green.

Strategy
Banana Central is best suited for preparing for late-game runs or Boss Bloon Events, whereby maximizing income is of greatest importance. Its role is to maximize income for all collectable-based Banana Farms, particularly Banana Research Facilities, on screen. It is most powerful when paired with immense group of BRFs (Banana Research Facilities), which can exponentially pay off the immense expenses per BRF, due to how each BRF closes the gap between the expense of the Banana Central and its income production buff to all BRFs on screen. However, a large investment by other means may be required before being able to afford a massive Banana Central army, so other forms of income gain such as Monkey Bank spam may be required first before then.

Although a lone Banana Central has a worse income efficiency than multiple BRFs, Banana Central benefits highly from direct income-related buffs such as Overclock. Overclock will increase the income of Banana Central by +66%, but because Banana Central is a Tier 5, Overclock will wear out before it has become refreshed. Using multiple Overclocks can be effective as a workaround. Another strategy is to make sure that Overclock is in effect right before a 'short' round like 80, when all of the money is dumped at once.

Although the Bank Deposits MK allows IMF Loan spam to become far more efficient at income production overall, Banana Central + Banana Research Facility spam is far less micro-intensive than the former option, because of how much less hand-eye coordination is required to scroll a finger/cursor over the screen repeatedly compared to excessive tapping on every individual IMF Bank's bank account for every little unit of financial transaction.

Efficiency
Efficiency is how many rounds a Banana Farm takes to pay its price. This is calculated by taking the total cost of a certain Banana Farm divided by its total income per round.

For Banana Central, the prices and incomes of all Banana Research Facilities are considered.

The efficiency with Valuable Bananas assumes that all BRF farms are upgraded with Valuable Bananas. The efficiency for an Overclocked Banana Central is 0.6x of its listed efficiency, or 0.36x with both Overclock and max Ultraboost stacks. In reality, both values are actually lower, meaning that the buffed Banana Central would pay back faster, due to Overclock buffs always rounding up income gain per income unit.

Additional Tips

 * With Overclock, Banana Central will produce 8 crates per round instead of 5, for +$3600 per round at minimum.
 * One Banana Central with both maximum Ultraboost stacks and active Overclock allows it to produce 16 crates per round. This in turn offers $19,200 per round without crosspaths, $24,000 per round with 5-2-0, $24,960 per round with "More Valuable Bananas" MK and 5-2-0, and ~$27,408 per round with both available conditions plus a nearby Monkey City.
 * When it comes to crosspathing, 5-2-0 Banana Central is almost always superior over 5-0-2. While 5-0-2 does offer a higher sellback and adds a compensatory autocollect, 5-2-0 offers a considerably higher crate value, compared to 5-0-2's higher sellback and compensatory income. In addition, because there can be only on Banana Central per player (unless on Co-Op Mode), and Banana Central produces the most amount of collectable income per Farm, one can just hold their finger onto the screen (or hold their cursor, on desktop versions) at the Banana Central to collect Banana Central crates with very little micro needed.
 * 5-2-0 generates more income, and this +25% income from Valuable Bananas can quickly offset the +10% sellback offered from Banana Salvage. On the other hand, Banana Salvage is superior at short-term income gain only if planning to sell later.
 * If all crates are collected manually, 5-2-0 gives an additional +$300 per crate, for a total of +$1500 per round. Compare it to 5-0-2's compensatory autocollection, which is a loss equal to -$180 compared to manual collection.

Trivia

 * Before Version 2.0 (?), Banana Central did not change color when upgraded along Path 2.
 * The bananas in the upgrade icon for Banana Central are reused sprites from the Banana Plantation upgrade.