Drops a line of bombs when crossing the Bloon track.
”
~ In-game description
Bomber Ace is the third upgrade of Path 2 for the Monkey Ace in Bloons TD 6. Instead of sporadically dropping explosive pineapples, the Monkey Ace drops an array of four powerful tightly-packed bombs onto nearby track. This quad bomb array has 1.6s cooldown per salvo (or 1.2s with 1-3-0). Bombs dropped in the array are quickly dropped equally within the timespan of about 0.8s, before each bomb sequentially exploding after about 1s each. Upon detonation, each bomb deals 3 damage onto up to 20 bloons per bomb (32 with 0-3-1 or 0-3-2), and each bomb has an explosion radius of 35 (just over a 0-0-0 Dart Monkey's range).
This upgrade costs $765 on Easy, $900 on Medium, $970 on Hard, and $1,080 on Impoppable. If this tower is nearby Level 6+ Rosalia's workshop, this upgrade costs $690 on Easy, $810 on Medium, $875 on Hard, and $970 on Impoppable.
Bomber Ace upgrades from the Sopwith Camel biplane design into a metal monoplane design with an underslung propeller on each wing. The fuselage is painted green, with a light blue and black stripe lining the unpainted nose. The cockpit is also lined with black paint, as are the engines, and the wings are painted black as well.
The bombs it drops are black with red fins and a red nose. Instead of pineapples from Exploding Pineapple, Bomber Ace drops arrays of bombs onto nearby track. This replaced attack always targets on the track. Bomb arrays are produced every 1.7s (or 1.275s with 1-3-0). Bombs in the array are dropped in quick succession, roughly 0.1s between each bomb, with 4 bombs dropped total. Like Spy Plane, all its attacks deal +1 damage to Camo Bloons.
Targeting Priorities
Like all Monkey Aces, Spy Plane uses flight patterns as its targeting priority settings. It requires the Centered Path upgrade to access the Centered Path targeting option.
Circle: Flight pattern becomes a circular path around the runway.
Figure Infinite: Flight pattern becomes the shape of the infinite symbol (∞). As the Monkey Ace flies, it will pass its runway during its flight, specifically at each half of the whole flight path.
Figure Eight: Flight pattern becomes the shape of the number 8. As the Monkey Ace flies, it will pass its runway during its flight, specifically at each half of the whole flight path.
Wingmonkey: Instead of a fixed flight path, the Monkey Ace will attempt to fly as close to the path as possible, similarly to an Aircraft Carrier Plane. Available only via the Wingmonkey MK.
Reverse Flight: Shown by an icon of a reverse aircraft, the Ace will reverse direction of flight. Unlike other target priorities such as Change Hands, there is a cooldown of 5 seconds before being able to reverse flight direction again. It can be coupled with all flight options except Wingmonkey.
Full Popology
Statistics
Updated as of Version 43.0
Base stats
Landing Base has a rectangular footprint of 28x18. "Dummy range" of 22. Upon placement, spawn Monkey Ace as the main tower.
Monkey Ace moves in a fixed pathway around its base, flying above all obstacles. Creates Dart projectiles from centre of Monkey Ace, and spawns Bomb Array from centre of Monkey Ace.
Circle: circular loop of 80 radius, center is the runway
Figure-Eight: figure-eight loop of (40, 40) radii, center is the runway
Figure-Infinite: figure-infinite loop of (40, 40) radii, center is the runway
Bomber Ace helps pop large groups of bloons within a tight region, dealing high damage but not consistently unless micromanaged optimally. When placed along a location where it can fly above a maximal amount of track, it becomes a good option for wiping out dense groups of regular bloons. It still requires support from other towers, as its bombs are still somewhat unreliable due to their random nature, but the increased deployment rate and explosion damage makes the Bomber Ace a far more reliable option compared to Exploding Pineapple.
Tips
Note that the bombs cannot pop Black Bloons or Zebra Bloons, so adding other towers to assist the popping of Black Bloons and Zebra Bloons will help make it easier for the Bomber Ace to finish off the other bloons.
The WingmonkeyMonkey Knowledge makes the Bomber Ace much more effective, as it guarantees more hits on bloons.
When it comes to crosspathing, 1-3-0 is more effective in most cases, as it deploys bombs at a faster rate, allowing for more opportunity to apply bombs as it crosses over paths. 0-3-1 is helpful, but Bomber Ace bomb arrays have good pierce anyway. Tier 2 crosspaths are not very effective except in special situations, like 2-3-0 for extra popping power from the darts themselves, or 0-3-2 for the advanced flight targeting.
Arguably, a 0-3-2 Bomber Ace is better than a 2-3-0 Ace on Park Path due to it being able to bomb the whole outer curve with the centered path flight path. This is also the case in Balance as it can bomb the outer loop of the track.
Even after the Version 22.0 pierce nerf to the bombs, Bomber Ace is a very popular option in Race Events due to its high pierce versus cost ratio, even if it means the bombing timing can be slightly RNG.
Version History
Balance Changes
Bomber Ace has overall been buffed since it was first released. The blast radius buff, deployment rate buff, and damage buff had allowed it to become more reliable as the Monkey Ace's primary lead-popping power as well as for countering grouped bloons. However, it has been nerfed slightly over later updates to make it less overpowered in Race Event situations.
7.0
Bomber Ace bombing run blast radius increased (25 → 35)
Bomber Ace bombing run attack cooldown reduced (3s → 1.5s)
Bomber Ace bombing run damage increased from (2 → 4)
Bomber Ace costs more ($500 → $900)
10.0
Bomber Ace bomb damage reduced (4 → 3)
Bomber Ace bombing run attack cooldown increased (1.5s → 1.7s)
Bomber Ace bombs will now benefit from the Rapid Fire crosspath.
22.0
“
While Pineapples are never the star of the show, the amount of pierce they have is completely unnecessary for their usage window and has only led to balance problems for Bombing Run, specifically in races. This high amount of pierce has been more evenly spread through higher tiers & crosspath. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to direct attention to nerfing Bomber Ace
Base Bomber Ace bomb pierce decreased (40 → 20)
0-3-1 Bomber Ace bomb pierce decreased (40 → 32)
23.0
“
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. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to base Monkey Ace attack speed rework
Monkey Ace base attack cooldown reduced (2.1s → 1.68s)
Monkey Ace dart projectile size increased (2 → 3)
30.0
“
More of a straight quality of life, Ace has gained a new special toggle button to allow it to turn back and fly in reverse on any selected flight pattern. [...]
Monkey Ace can now toggle flight direction for any pattern.
31.0
“
Spy Plane is always a lesser crosspath aside from specific challenges that call for camo detection. It has a similar vibe to Night Vision sniper so we have given it a similar buff.
”
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Spy Plane
Bomber Ace now deals +1 damage to Camos with all its attacks
41.0
“
[...] Exploding pineapples gained a larger rate bonus from crosspathing than the main attack did to make up for its base rate being so poor, so we're fixing that poor base rate while keeping the crosspath bonus the same. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Exploding Pineapple
1-3-0 Bomber Ace bombing array attack cooldown increased from 1.02s to 1.275s
43.0
“
Minor catchup changes to some parts have fallen out of line slightly due to balance changes for other parts of the Ace.
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Bomber Ace bombing array attack cooldown reduced 1.7s to 1.6s
1-3-0 Bomber Ace bombing array base attack cooldown reduced from 1.275s to 1.2s
Bug Fixes and General Changes
This section is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.
Extra Notes (Version History)
The Version 43.0 Bomber Ace attack speed buff is carried over from the Exploding Pineapple attack speed buff. This is likely because the Bomber Ace in 41.0 was coded to no longer have a hardcoded attack cooldown value when compared to Exploding Pineapple.
Bomber Ace was not affected by Version 23.0's increased attack speed to the Exploding Pineapple.
Version 44.0 buffed Rosalia's Level 6+ discount from 5% to 10%, which changed the prices of Spy Plane when buffed by her:
Bomber Ace was one the few Tier 3 upgrades in BTD6 that was cheaper than the base tower. This was no longer the case after Bomber Ace received mechanics buffs followed by a price nerf both on the Version 7.0 update.
In the Version 7.0 patch notes, there was no mention of a price nerf to Bomber Ace in spite of it gaining a significant damage output rework.
In BTD6, Bomber Ace is the only Tier 3 Monkey Ace to lose its front propeller.
Before Bomber Ace was secretly nerfed from $500 to $900 and Ground Zero was $14,000, both assuming Medium prices, the price gap between the Tier 3 and 4 upgrades was 28x. Bomber Ace upgrade had the highest percentage price gap between its Tier 3 and Tier 4 upgrades, as Ground Zero got nerfed in price.
Starting from Version 30.0, the Bomber Ace upgrade holds among the highest percentage price gaps between its Tier 3 and Tier 4 upgrades, as Ground Zero got nerfed in price. Before then, that reign belonged to Triple Shot and Super Monkey Fan Club, at 20x cost difference ($400 versus $8000), and now it's shared.
Airforce Upgrades: All T3+ Monkey Aces get +1 pierce.
Elite Military Training: All Military Monkeys get a one-off +1000 XP and earn XP in-game 5% faster permanently.
Accelerated Aerodarts: Darts from Monkey Aces fly faster.
Gun Coolant: Monkey Aces attack 10% faster.
Wingmonkey: Grants all Monkey Aces with a new target priority that allows it to fly around the screen like the planes from the Aircraft Carrier.
Military Conscription: First military tower costs only ⅔ of the original cost.
Advanced Logistics: All Military Monkeys base costs reduced by 5%.
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%.
Sharp
Camo Detection
Orbital Spray (8)
Straight Attack
Path-Based Mobility
Flying
Extra Damage to Camos (+1)
Explosion
On-Track
Straight Spray (4)
Extra Damage (3)
Bomber Ace bombing run blast radius increased (25 → 35)
Bomber Ace costs more ($500 → $900)
