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BTD6

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.

Additionally, Special Poperations also increases the Heli Pilot's movement speed by 50%, making it the fastest aircraft-based tower.

This upgrade costs $25,500 on Easy, $30,000 on Medium, $32,400 on Hard, and $36,000 on Impoppable.

Description[]

Overview[]

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.

Costs[]

Updated as of Version 41.0. 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: MilitaryConscriptionIcon Military Conscription, AdvancedLogisticsIcon Advanced Logistics, BetterSellDealsIcon Better Sell Deals

Activated Abilities[]

Deploy Marine[]

Marine Ability

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.

The Marine is also affected by the Faster Firing upgrade, making it a better crosspath than top path if considering maximum efficiency.

Supply Crates[]

SpecialChinookTwo

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[]

RedeployAbilityPoperations

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:

Door Gunner[]

Main article: Door Gunner
Door Gunnered Sun Avatar

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.

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.

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.

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
  • BUFF Cooldown for Marine decreased (50s → 40s)
12.0
  • NERF Special Poperations' Marine is no longer affected by Alchemist buffs.
  • BUFF Special Poperations' Marine now consumes 0 footprint.
16.0
  • NERF 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
  • BUFF Special Poperations, Marine ability cooldown reduced from 40s → 25s
  • NERF Special Poperations, Marine unit pierce reduced from 30 → 20
27.0
  • BUFF 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
  • NERF Special Poperation's Cash Generating abilities now have a 3 minute timeout
  • BUFF Special Poperation's Supply Drop now drops life and cash crates together
  • NERF Special Poperation's Supply Drop cooldown increased from 60s → 90s
  • BUFF Special Poperations Supply Drop cash is now changed from $2000-$4000 to a fixed $4500
  • NERF 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
  • BUFF Affected by Chinook pickup cooldown decrease
  • Change Affected by Downdraft rework, now removing glue and ice status effects
37.0
  • NERF Special Poperations crate ability max uses per round reduced 3 → 2
38.0
  • Change Affected by Chinook blowback reworks
  • [undocumented, possibly bug] Blowback no longer removes ice status effect.
39.0
  • BUFF Affected by Chinook offensive attack bonuses

Sounds[]

When activating Supply Crate Ability:

When activating Redeploy Ability or Door Gunner Ability:

When activating Marine Ability:

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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