High Energy Beacon

"All towers with 'Abilities' have their cooldowns reduced by 20% and adds a powerful energy beam attack."

- BMC description High Energy Beacon was released on Mar 22, 2012, being the current final upgrade for the path 1 upgrades for Monkey Village, replacing Energy Beacon. All towers within its range with Special Abilities have their cooldowns reduced by 20% (50% on Mobile versions except BTDB Mobile, where it is 30%) and the village itself gets a powerful energy beam attack. This beam doesn't stop and the locked Bloon loses all its layers very quickly. This upgrade also increases the range of the Monkey Village.

The energy beam deals 6 (?) damage to the target bloon in Flash versions but does 2 (?) damage in Mobile, except in BTDB Mobile where it does more.

It costs $10,200 on Easy, $12,000 on Medium, $12,960 on Hard and $14,400 on Impoppable.

Summary
Not only does it give the Monkey Village with an offensive attack, it greatly reduces ability cooldowns of nearby towers. This also helps Supply Drop farming.

Tips

 * The beam can't pop Camo Bloons without the Radar Scanner upgrade, and even if bought, it won't allow other High Energy Beacons to target camo bloons.
 * In mobile, when upgrade to High Energy Beacon, the towers cooldown will become the duration remaining of the cooldown and make the cooldown faster.
 * Combined with Bigger Beacons and Radar Scanner, High Energy Beacon can earn lots of money due to the combination of its enormous coverage and the Monkey Town upgrade.

Trivia

 * Whenever this tower loses its target for a bloon, it will zap the left side of the screen.
 * One of these can destroy a MOAB without help on The Rink. Three can destroy a BFB, and eight can destroy a ZOMG.
 * The laser generator appears to be inside a robotic eye that will even look around and blink.
 * Possibly a reference to the Eye of Sauron, which is a giant eye on top of high tower in the middle of a large fortress from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In addition, the eye of the High Energy Beacon Village is constantly blinking and moving around erratically in a similar fashion.
 * Homage to HAL 9000 from the Space Odyssey.
 * In the Mobile version, the eye appears to be hyper-realistic and the beam is also purple.
 * Also, the upgrade name was shortened to Energy Beacon due to the size of the upgrade button.
 * The pops 6 layers per frame.
 * After extensive testing, it has been shown that the high energy beacon reduces tower ability cooldowns by 50% on bloons TD5 iOS, despite what the description says (as of 1/19/14).
 * Because of this, a fully upgraded Hotter Cooldown (20% on mobile instead of 30%) allows a total cooldown of 70%. (85% counting the Bloontonium Reactor)
 * The cooldown effect does not apply to M.I.B. Call to Arms Ability
 * In BTD6, the Energizer upgrade buff in Version 2.0 was likely inspired by the High Energy Beacon's reduced cooldowns portion.
 * The concept of an offensive Monkey Village is kept in BTD6 with Primary Expertise, making it sort of a spiritual successor to High Energy Beacon.
 * High Energy Beacon is not affected by Meerkat Spy.