Revision as of 12:49, 17 October 2025 by Qwertyxp2000(talk | contribs)(→Strategy: some more tips of summarizing the aces on all paths, more could be done here with summarizing ace akin to the desperado article)
The Monkey Ace is a plane that flies over the track and periodically spits out a burst of eight darts, each aimed at a fixed 45 degrees apart. Rather than targeting options, the player can choose the path the plane flies around its landing strip, including a circle, an infinity symbol, a vertical infinity symbol, and a figure-eight. Upgrades and Monkey Knowledge can add additional flight paths. By default, the Monkey Ace cannot pop lead or frozen balloons, or detect camo. Rosalia can provide price discounts to Monkey Aces within her radius.
It can be upgraded to shoot many more darts and anti MOAB-class Bloon missiles, drop small and huge bombs on the ground, or fire streams of darts and bombs directly at the Bloons.
This section is empty. You can help out by adding to it. The editor who added this notice elaborates: add dart infos and how the darts interact and stuff like that, also show flight paths
Movement
In BTD6, the camera is tilted 30 degrees from the vertical, resulting in the vertical dimension being squashed. All ace movement in this section will be in reference to an un-squashed coordinate system (i.e. the "Circle" path being an actual circle).
Takeoff
Upon placement of the monkey ace, the monkey ace initially travels horizontally by 30 units (the radius of the circle targeting is 80 units)[1] as given by this expression:
where is measured in seconds.
On-path movement
While on the path, the ace moves at a speed of 1 unit per frame (with the exception of Fighter Plane, Dart Storm, and Sky Shredder, which moves at 1.25 units per frame). "frame" in this context refers to exactly 1/60th of a second, and not an in-game frame which may vary in length.
As all 3 paths (Circle, Figure Eight, Figure Infinite) have a total path length of units, this yields a period of seconds
Off-path movement
When the ace is not on the path that its targeting is set to, it will attempt to chase the target point of the path. This is an imaginary point on the path that travels at the same speed as the ace when on the path. These target points start moving when the ace is placed and does not stop.
The ace has an off-path speed 1.2 times greater than its on-path speed[1]. It also has a limited turning speed of radians per frame
When the ace is within 1 unit of the target point, regardless of direction, it will snap onto the path. This can cause sudden direction changes.
This section is incomplete. You can help out by expanding it. The editor who added this notice elaborates: Add the explicitly part of starter parties thing
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The Monkey Ace has very high potential damage, but usually wastes most of its shots away from Bloons, and outside of Neva-Miss Targeting and above, has no way to chase and pop leaking bloons. However, the Ace's position can be microed to spend more time near bloons and on the track, improving its damage. This uses the path tracking mechanics of the Ace to the player's advantage, as the target points for each path update at the same rate. Each Ace flight path has its own target point updating simultaneously, so a player can change the Ace's flight path to one that puts the targeting point closer to the track, cycling through flight paths to keep the Ace near the track for as long as possible. Because this is done based on the tracking points in the flight paths, this is done at a rhythm matching how long it takes the Ace to complete one rotation. Despite this, Ace Micro is widely ignored in casual play as it requires precise timing and being too hands on, mainly preferring to use Wingmonkey as an alternative.
Due to ignoring obstacles, Monkey Aces can be useful in all maps. Top path's Dart Storm and Sky Shredder deal high MOAB-class damage and is receptive to buffs for their darts. Bomber Aces and above are very strong in Race Events due to their high pierce and damage output when properly controlled. Neva-Miss Targeting and Spectre are generally friendly to casual players, however they are typically not cost-efficient compared to similarly priced options, though Flying Fortress is always a strong late-game option and does a lot of Boss damage on all map formats.
Changes from Bloons TD 5
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Monkey Ace was never intended to be a great starting tower and instead come into power at mid- and high-tier upgrades, but since the base tower feels lacking to new players (and some of us old timers) we decided to rework low tier power into the base tower. — Update notes
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Base Monkey Ace attack cooldown reduced ― 2.1s → 1.68s