| “ | Deploys a powerful special Monkey Marine with a machine gun. | ” |
| ~ In-game description |
Special Poperations is the fifth and final upgrade of Path 2 for the Heli Pilot in Bloons TD 6. Alongside making its own crate ability give just under triple the amount of cash and over double the number of lives ($4500 and 25 lives), it also adds another ability that drops one temporary "Marine" monkey in-game upon activation which shoots like a fast-shooting Super Monkey with limited range that deal 6 damage onto up to 20 bloons per shot. The Marine can also pop Camo and Leads, making it effective against most Bloon types. The Marine lasts for 30 seconds and the ability cooldown for the Marine Ability is 25 seconds, more than enough uptime to consistently have one Marine up at all times. The Marine is uniquely able to be sold on CHIMPS, much like the Sentry Champion's Champion Sentries and Level 18+ Creepy Idol.
Additionally, Special Poperations also increases its blowback rate from 0.15s to 0.075s, and movement speed by 50%, making it the fastest aircraft-based tower, and the cooldown of the Reposition Ability decreases from 45s to 15s. But due to a bug, Special Poperations with any crosspath (1+/5/0 and 0/5/1+) don’t increase blowback pierce and pierce penalty versus Ceramics.
This upgrade costs $25,500 on Easy, $30,000 on Medium, $32,400 on Hard, and $36,000 on Impoppable. If this tower is nearby Level 6+ Rosalia's workshop, this upgrade costs $22,950 on Easy, $27,000 on Medium, $29,160 on Hard, and $32,400 on Impoppable.
Description[]
Overview[]
Special Poperations
The main Heli Pilot becomes of a darker shade, and adds a light gray roundel with an electric bolt to both sides. In the upgrade portrait, it is revealed that the Special Poperations deploys towers using a rope from the Heli Pilot. In the artwork, the Marine is shown to be grabbing onto the rope and shooting. When placed down and selected, the monkey's image is standing and shooting normally. On the field, the Marine fires red coloured darts.
The new Marine Ability's upgrade icon is a recoloured version of the head and rifle of the Elite Defender. When the Marine Ability is activated, the Marine will be placed on the nearest placeable land spot and generate the sound of a secret agency walkie-talkie call (removed as of Version 22.0 or so, definitely so in Version 23.0).
Targeting Priorities[]
Special Poperations utilizes touch-based mobility and self-mobility to move around the screen with different flight targetings. Its main attack shoots straight movement projectiles, which originate from the Heli Pilot with its independent range like an ordinary tower.
- Follow Touch / Follow Mouse: Moves to where the player taps. On desktop versions, Follow Touch instead becomes Follow Mouse, which will make the Heli Pilot move to wherever the cursor is currently at.
- Lock In Place: Stops the Heli Pilot where it is when the Target Priority is selected. Can be adjusted to choose a different locked location.
- Patrol: Patrols between two spots chosen by the player. Can be adjusted to choose different points.
- Pursuit: Equivalent to the target priority First, except the Heli Pilot will automatically follow in front of Bloons while shooting them. It is unlocked with the purchase of the second upgrade on the first path, with the same name as the target priority. Once upgraded to the respective upgrade, it automatically switches to this target priority.
The Heli Pilot's main attacks always default on First based on the range of the helicopter's weaponry. The blowback attack is locked on Close. Despite gaining camo detection, the Heli Pilot does not gain Camo Prioritization.
Special Poperation's crate ability produces crates as spawned collectables that can be manually picked up by the player. Placement of the crates are erratic. That ability has no interaction with any targeting priorities.
Special Poperation's redeploy ability utilizes a selection menu that requires user interaction to drag-and-drop (or drop-and-lock, depending on settings) a tower to a new location.
The Marine ability drops a Marine that starts at First and uses standard targeting priorities:
- First: Targets the first bloon visible within its range.
- Last: Targets the last bloon visible within its range.
- Close: Targets the closest bloon visible within its range.
- Strong: Targets the strongest bloon visible within its range.
Activated Abilities[]
Special Poperations gains three different abilities, more than almost all towers with abilities. The newest compared to Support Chinook is the Marine ability. Its crate ability simultaneously drops a cash crate and lives crate that both have higher value, while its faster-cooldown Reposition ability can reposition most types of towers to a different location.
When the 
Door Gunner MK is unlocked, it gains a fourth ability: Door Gunner.
Deploy Marine[]
Marine placed on a land location
Upon activation, the Special Poperations Chinook will deploy the Marine near the closest land spot relative to the Special Poperations Chinook. The Marine lasts for 30 seconds and has a 25-second cooldown. The Marine has 6 damage and 20 pierce, and attacks 20 times per second (every 0.04s). Marine can be sold on CHIMPS.
The Marine is also affected by the Faster Firing upgrade, decreasing attack cooldown from 0.04s to 0.032s, making it a better crosspath than top path if considering maximum efficiency.
Supply Crates[]
Special Poperations with two simultaneous crates
Upon activation, the Special Poperations Chinook will drop crates of cash and lives. These crates give more cash and lives than the previous iteration (specifically $4,500 and 25 lives), but the cooldown remains the same, at 90 seconds, and this ability can only be used up to 2 times per round, and all same abilities disable after 3 minutes from the start of a round.
When a player has over 1,000 lives, the amount of lives given by the crates is greatly reduced to 2. This limit is shared with the Chinook and any other life-generating upgrades.
Pickup Tower[]
Special Poperations' Redeploy ability menu
Also referred to as the "Reposition Ability", "Redeploy Ability", or "Move Tower Ability".
Upon activation, the screen will change to show what towers can be moved, with targets on towers that can be moved. Selecting a moveable tower will allow the player to reposition the tower. After repositioning a tower, the Special Poperations Chinook will move to the tower, pick up the tower, move to the new position, then drop the tower. The ability remains unchanged from the previous iteration. However, due to the increased movement speed of the Heli, the tower is redeployed slightly faster.
The list of towers that cannot be moved remains the same:
- All Banana Farms
- All Monkey Villages
- Sun Temples
- The True Sun God, including the Vengeful True Sun God variant
- Aircraft Carrier and Carrier Flagship
- All temporary towers
- All Monkey Ace landing bases
- All Heli Pilot landing bases
- All Beast Handlers
- All Paragons
- Portable Lakes
- Pontoons
- All of Geraldo's tower-like items
- Rosalia or her workshop
- Other players' towers in Co-Op Mode
Door Gunner[]
- Main article: Door Gunner
Door Gunner with Sun Avatar picked up via Door Gunner
The Door Gunner ability unlocks for the Special Poperations when the "Door Gunner" MK is unlocked and active. The main function of the Door Gunner ability is to pick up any pickable tower Tier 4 or below (this excludes Heroes too) and allow the tower to attack while active. The tower will not be able to change target priority or activate their abilities until transported to a new location, although the picked up tower's ability can still be active while transported via Door Gunner.
When activated, the ability sends the helicopter towards the selected tower and picks it up. Once activated, the tower will continue shooting on their set target priority until transported back to a new location via pressing the Door Gunner ability again. The Door Gunner tower will be considered to have Flying, just like the Heli itself, allowing its projectiles to travel above all obstacles.
While a Door Gunner is active, the Redeploy ability is disabled until the Door Gunner is placed onto a new location. When the Door Gunner is relocated onto another location, the 60-second cooldown for both Door Gunner ability and Redeploy ability will begin. Note that both the Door Gunner ability and Redeploy ability are shared between each other; activating either ability sets the cooldown for both abilities.
Certain interactions occur while using Door Gunner. For example, Engineers with any Path 1 upgrade (except with Tier 5 upgrades) will drop their sentries directly below where the Special Poperations Heli is currently hovering at, or to the nearest placeable land spot if the target location is water or otherwise considered unplaceable terrain. Additionally, it is possible for the Door Gunner's ability to be active while picked up, but the Door Gunner's abilities cannot begin while picked up until placed down.
Full Popology[]
Statistics[]
- Updated as of Version 44.0
- Base stats
- Landing Base has a rectangular footprint of 27x27. "Dummy range" of 22. Upon placement, spawn Heli Pilot as the main tower.
- Heli Pilot moves at a flight speed of 70. Can be set on Follow Touch / Follow Mouse, Lock In Place, Patrol Points, or Pursuit. Creates Dart projectiles from centre of Heli Pilot if detecting bloons within range. Passively produce Wind.
- Follow Touch / Follow Mouse: move towards wherever the screen was last touched, or wherever the cursor is on screen.
- Lock In Place: move towards the locked location, otherwise stop moving
- Patrol Points: move between two points.
- Dart:
- Projectile, sharp type, camo detection, 42 range, spray of 2, 0.57s attack cooldown, 2 damage, 3 pierce. Projectile size of 6. Projectile speed of 260, projectile lifespan of 1.0s.
- Wind:
- Zone, shatter type, ignores Lead Bloons and MOAB-class bloons, camo detection, 32 radius, 0.15s attack cooldown, 0 damage, 4 pierce (consumption: Ceramics = 2). Applies blowback to bloons, moving them backwards by 32-150 track distance.
- Ability stats - Marine Ability
- Marine Ability:
- Cooldown of 25 seconds, initial cooldown of 8.33 seconds. When activated, drop Marine within about 30 units around the Heli, prioritizing the closest land spot.
- Marine:
- 50 range, 0 footprint, 30 seconds lifespan. If detects bloons, activate Marine Dart.
- Marine Dart:
- Projectile, normal type, camo detection, 50 range, 0.04s attack cooldown, 6 damage, 20 pierce. Projectile size of 5. Projectile speed of 300, projectile lifespan of 0.4s.
- Ability stats - Redeploy Ability
- Redeploy Ability:
- Cooldown of 15 seconds, initial cooldown of 15 seconds. When selected, activate context menu. Context menu highlights eligible towers to be picked up and moved to a new location. Cannot move to temporary land or temporary water. Upon moving a tower, move Heli Pilot to location target and move it to the new location to drop off the picked up tower.
- Ability stats - Crate Drop Ability
- Crate Drop Ability:
- Cooldown of 90 seconds, initial cooldown of 90 seconds, max 2 times per round per Heli, can only be used within 3 minutes from the start of each round. When activated, summon Crate Drop.
- Crate Drop:
- Spawn, passive type, generates a Cash Crate and Health Crate that both move about 35 units in any random direction from the Heli. Both crates share the same movement path with a slight angle difference.
- Cash Crate:
- Collectable spawn, passive type, generates $4500 when picked up. Pickup range of 50. Lifespan of about 15 seconds.
- Cash Crate:
- Collectable spawn, passive type, generates 25 lives when picked up. Pickup range of 50. Lifespan of about 15 seconds.
- Crosspathing interactions
- 1-5-0: Dart attack spawn locations adjusted, now simultaneously shooting double sprays of two.
- 2-5-0: Gains Pursuit targeting and modifies Patrol Points to also gain a stadium-shaped range of Pursuit.
- 0-5-1: Dart projectile speed and range increased.
- 0-5-2: Dart attack cooldown reduced from 0.57s to 0.456s, Wind attack cooldown reduced from 0.075s to 0.06s, Marine Dart attack cooldown reduced from 0.04s to 0.032s.
- Monkey Knowledge interactions
Airforce Upgrades: All T3+ Heli Pilots get +1 pierce.
- Base pierce increased from 3 to 4
- Elite Military Training: All Military Monkeys get a one-off +1000 XP and earn XP in-game 5% faster permanently.
- Charged Chinooks: Chinook Activated Abilities give 25% more lives and cash.
- Allows the Special Poperations to drop $5625 and 31 lives.
- Military Conscription: First military tower costs only ⅔ of the original cost.
- Heli Pilot base cost from $1,360, $1,600, $1,730, and $1,920 → $910, $1,070, $1,160, and $1,285 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
- Advanced Logistics: All Military Monkeys base costs reduced by 5%.
- Heli Pilot base cost from $1,360, $1,600, $1,730, and $1,920 → $1,290, $1,520, $1,640, and $1,825 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
- If Military Conscription is also enabled, the final cost will be $845, $990, $1,070, and $1,190.
- Heli Pilot base cost from $1,360, $1,600, $1,730, and $1,920 → $1,290, $1,520, $1,640, and $1,825 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
- Door Gunner: Enables Door Gunner special ability.
- Monkey Education: All Monkeys XP earn rate increased by 8%.
- Better Sell Deals: All Monkeys sell for 5% more. Increases sell potency from 70% to 75%.
- Veteran Monkey Training: All Monkeys reload time reduced by 3%.
- Global Ability Cooldowns: All Ability cooldowns for all Monkeys reduced by 3%.
Attack Interactions[]
- See also: Attack Interactions/Bloons TD 6/Military
- Updated as of Version 44.0
- Base attack(s)
- Dart:
- Sharp
- Camo Detection
- Straight Spray (2)
- Straight Attack
- Extra Damage (2)
- Touch-Based Mobility
- Flying
- Wind:
- Shatter
- Camo Detection
- Zone
- Touch-Based Mobility
- Flying
- Target Bloon
- No Damage
- Blowback (32-150 track distance)
- Unfreeze
- Unglue
Costs[]
- Updated as of Version 44.0. Listed prices exclude external buffs, any sacrifices, and Monkey Knowledge.
| [Module | Data] | Purchase | Sell | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costs | Easy | Medium | Hard | Impoppable | Easy | Medium | Hard | Impoppable |
| Upgrade (X-5-X) | $25,500 | $30,000 | $32,400 | $36,000 | - | |||
| Total (0-5-0) | $38,675 | $45,500 | $49,145 | $54,600 | $27,073 | $31,850 | $34,402 | $38,220 |
| Crosspath (1-5-0) | $39,355 | $46,300 | $50,010 | $55,560 | $27,549 | $32,410 | $35,007 | $38,892 |
| Crosspath (2-5-0) | $39,780 | $46,800 | $50,550 | $56,160 | $27,846 | $32,760 | $35,385 | $39,312 |
| Crosspath (0-5-1) | $38,885 | $45,750 | $49,415 | $54,900 | $27,220 | $32,025 | $34,591 | $38,430 |
| Crosspath (0-5-2) | $39,180 | $46,100 | $49,795 | $55,320 | $27,426 | $32,270 | $34,857 | $38,724 |
This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: 
Military Conscription, 
Advanced Logistics, 
Better Sell Deals
Strategy[]
Summary[]
Special Poperations should not be underestimated just because the only major benefit of the upgrade is its new Marine ability. The main advantages of the Marine are its flexible placement, universal popping power, high pierce, and fast attack speed. Additionally, the total uptime for the Marine ability is very generous, with just over 100% uptime, allowing for frequent usages of the Marine in different spots at just about any time.
Additionally, the Special Poperations comes with a lot of extra support, in the forms of an improved crate ability, rapid-firing blowback, and much quicker redeployment of picked up towers.
Tips[]
- When it comes to optimizing the Marine ability, use the 0-5-2 crosspath, as the Marine is affected by this crosspath benefit. Quad Darts does not affect the Marine by any means, although Pursuit can affect where the Marine may land.
- The 0-5-2 crosspath is more efficient; if the player wants a more automatized simple tower, then use the 2-5-0 crosspath.
- The Marine ability has just over 100% uptime. As long as the ability is repetitively used, Special Poperations will retains its high DPS potential.
- This tower is a mainstay of Least Tiers Boss Bloon Events. It is not reliant on crosspathing, and can generate massive amounts of income by itself thanks to being able to stall out rounds via its Downdraft effect and thus maximize the amount of crates received. Its ability to stall is also useful when fighting the boss to make sure that regular rounds do not progress too quickly. Furthermore, Marines are excellent DPS for 1st and 2nd Tier Bosses.
- For Timed Bosses, Door Gunner may be used as a niche way to bring a Sun Avatar or Embrittlement closer to the boss to maximize DPS for Tier 5.
- Selling the Marine is usually not necessary, since the Marine does a lot of DPS and usually shouldn't interfere with the defense. However, if opting for a stalling strategy, selling the Marine is worth a consideration.
- The significantly reduced cooldown of the Reposition Ability makes it much more reliable at repositioning multiple targets than three Support Chinooks, for only slightly less cost. Also, the greater flight speed reduces the delay between pickups.
Version History[]
Balance Changes[]
Buffed overall since it was first released, mostly with a series of ability cooldown reductions to the Marine ability. While the Special Poperations' Marine can no longer accept Alch buffs in a similar way as the Comanche Commander could prior to Version 12.0, it is still a useful mobile DPS option. The Version 26.0 buff helps it become a consistent DPS option, especially on CHIMPS, now that it has just over 100% uptime on its own, meaning that units like Energizer are no longer very needed.
- 7.0
- Cooldown for Marine decreased (50s → 40s)
- 12.0
- Special Poperations' Marine is no longer affected by Alchemist buffs.
- Special Poperations' Marine now consumes 0 footprint.
- 16.0
- Special Poperations' supply crate ability no longer gives any lives on Impoppable Difficulty unless the maximum lives limit is set to be higher than 1.
- 26.0
| “ | We've noted that Special Poperations has save-up issues, and then once owned has uptime and single target issues. With the 30 second duration, it now has potentially no downtime and instead allowing careful (or techbot) management to give a short burst of increased single target. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Special Poperations, Marine ability cooldown reduced from 40s → 25s
- Special Poperations, Marine unit pierce reduced from 30 → 20
- 27.0
- Inherited the Chinook redeployment footprint buff
- 28.0
| “ | For similar reasons to Sniper, Chinook is a pretty annoying tower to farm with, so its ability has been standardized into a single producing both a life & a cash crate on a longer cooldown; the cash production of this has gone up while the life generation has been reduced as the power stood out too much compared to any other life generation method. [...] | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Special Poperation's Cash Generating abilities now have a 3 minute timeout
- Special Poperation's Supply Drop now drops life and cash crates together
- Special Poperation's Supply Drop cooldown increased from 60s → 90s
- Special Poperations Supply Drop cash is now changed from $2000-$4000 to a fixed $4500
- Special Poperations Supply Drop lives produced decreased from 100-150 lives to 25 lives
- 36.0
| “ | For how powerful downdraft is in comparison to other blowback effects, it didn’t feel right that it wasn’t blowing off status effects as should be normal there. Redeploy feels like it has no business having so long a cooldown, maybe it could see more realistic use cases for this main mechanic if it was able to be utilized more frequently. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Affected by Chinook pickup cooldown decrease
- Affected by Downdraft rework, now removing glue and ice status effects
- 37.0
- Special Poperations crate ability max uses per round reduced 3 → 2
- 38.0
- Affected by Chinook blowback reworks
- [undocumented, possibly bug] Blowback no longer removes ice status effect.
- [undocumented, possibly bug] Special Poperations with any crosspath (1+/5/0 and 0/5/1+) don’t increase blowback pierce and pierce penalty versus Ceramics.
- 39.0
- Affected by Chinook offensive attack bonuses
- 42.0
| “ | The blowback rate of Special Poperations is being increased to reflect the previous changes upgrading downdraft to support chinook and bring up more lategame value in the support capabilities of this path. [...] | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Special Poperations downdraft attack cooldown reduced from 0.15s to 0.075s
- 43.0
- Special Poperations Marine can now be sold in CHIMPS
- 44.0
| “ | Players have noticed the life crate has more collection radius than the cash crate, and that this causes problems for some strategies / challenges as you don’t always want to increase lives, so these radius have been matched. Special Poperations struggles to fit into competitive strategies due to it serving a different purpose than the T4, so the cooldown of the Support Chinook ability at T5 is now being greatly reduced in order to continue building on what is good about the T4 even for strategies that may not need the Marine specifically. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Special Poperations' Redeploy ability cooldown reduced from 45s to 15s
- Special Poperations lives crate collection radius reduced from 100 to 50
Bug Fixes and General Changes[]
 |
This section is incomplete. You can help by expanding it. |
Extra Notes (Version History)[]
- Version 44.0 buffed Rosalia's Level 6+ discount from 5% to 10%, which changed the prices of Special Poperations when buffed by her:
- Easy: $24,225 → $22,950
- Medium: $28,500 → $27,000
- Hard: $30,780 → $29,160
- Impoppable: $34,200 → $32,400
- Easy + Aeronautic Subsidy: $21,800 → $20,655
- Medium + Aeronautic Subsidy: $25,650 → $24,300
- Hard + Aeronautic Subsidy: $27,700 → $26,245
- Impoppable + Aeronautic Subsidy: $30,780 → $29,160
Bugs[]
- Current
- [38.0] Special Poperations with any crosspath (1+/5/0 and 0/4/1+) don’t increase blowback pierce and pierce penalty versus Ceramics. This also affects Support Chinook, its previous upgrade, but not Downdraft.
Sounds[]
When activating Supply Crate Ability:
- [Crate dropping]
- [Cash collecting]
- [Lives collecting]
When activating Redeploy Ability or Door Gunner Ability:
- [Helicopter flying]
- [Picking up towers]
- [Dropping off towers]
When activating Marine Ability:
- [Helicopter flying]
- [Walkie-talkie speaking] "You're going to seek near here! [psssh]" (removed in ~22.0)
- [Walkie-talkie speaking] "Don't waste, no time to waste! [psssh]" (removed in ~22.0)
Gallery[]
Official artwork[]
Trivia[]
- The icon for this upgrade is similar to the artwork of the Elite Defender upgrade for the Sniper Monkey, but with blue colouring instead of orange.
- This upgrade has the most number of different abilities per tower, with three different abilities for the same tower, with two abilities coming from the Support Chinook.
- As of version 7.0, this is now tied with Ezili and Adora.
- As of version 17.0, the Super Monkey has a higher number of total abilites (at four), though it can only have one at any given time.
- As of version 17.0, the Door Gunner Monkey Knowledge gives this upgrade a fourth ability, though it shares its cooldown with the Redeploy ability.
- "Poperations" is a portmanteau of "pop" and "operations."
- "Special operations" is a term meaning military enforcement by special military forces.
- Two new bugs have been introduced to Special Poperations in Version 17.0: one of them involves spawning multiple Marines every few seconds upon using the Marine ability while using picking up a tower via the Redeploy ability, and the other being placing a tower in the center of the map regardless of placement by using the Door Gunner MK ability to drop down a tower onto a Carrier Flagship and immediately selling the Carrier Flagship right before placement.
- The former has been fixed as of Version 17.1.
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