Ace Pilot

Stats

Base Cost

500

Base Damage

2

Damage Type

Single, Splash (Level 2+)

Fire Rate

0.22

Flying Detection

Level 0+

Hidden Detection

Level 4+

Immune

Stun, Partial Debuff

Lead Detection

Level 2+ (Splash Damage only)

Placement

Ground (Air-based)

Placement Limit

8

Range

9

Role

Defense

Selling Price

166

Unlock Cost

1,500

Description

The Ace Pilot is an intermediate tower that can be bought for 1,500 Coins. Unlike other ground towers, the attacking unit of the Ace Pilot, the plane, is an air unit. The Ace Pilot will circle around the runway. At Level 2+, this can be changed to a figure eight. With its Toggle Reverse ability, it is possible to reverse its flight path. The Ace Pilot is armed with a pair of machine guns on each wing at the base and will shoot any enemy within its patrol radius. At Levels 2–5, the aircraft will periodically drop a bomb directly where the targeted enemy was last, exploding and damaging any enemies caught in the explosion. The explosion is separated into two spheres. Enemies in the inner sphere will be dealt 100% of the stated damage, while damage in the outer sphere decreases linearly by distance from the edge of the inner sphere to the edge of the outer sphere. Since its bombs deal splash damage, they ignore defense, dealing full damage to the enemies with defense. These bombs can also damage Lead enemies. Due to it being an air-based tower, it is immune to stuns, and because it is not a humanoid tower, it is also immune to debuffs from enemies added before v1.9.0. Additionally, because it is an air-based tower, it can detect Flying enemies. At Level 4, the Ace Pilot will also grant nearby towers hidden detection with its Hidden Assist, giving towers without hidden detection, like the Ranger, the ability to detect Hidden enemies. Its machine guns are then replaced by a single autocannon, granting it higher damage and firerate.

Statistics

To see all the previous statistics of this tower, see the history page, while for the statistics without the Firerate Bug, visit the Firerate Bug page.

Skins

To see all the upgrades of a skin, see the gallery page.

Strategy

Place this tower where it can be used to its full potential. This primarily involves placing it at turns. Placing it on a straight path is not recommended, as it will not shoot as often. As the Ace Pilot flies clockwise, placing it so it covers a counterclockwise path turn will mean it has a greater chance of attacking an enemy. The first roundabout on Wrecked Battlefield is a good example of this. You can also place it on a clockwise path and use the Toggle Reverse ability to make it fly counterclockwise, having the same effect. When changing flight paths, the Ace Pilot will complete the previous flight path first before switching to the new flight path. The DJ Booth can significantly increase its attack radius. However, the DJ Booth does not increase the Ace Pilot's flying radius. Try not to focus solely on Ace Pilots. This is because faster enemies may walk right past the Ace Pilot without being damaged. If you want reliable defense, then a Minigunner or Cowboy could be a more reliable option. The Commander cannot decrease the firerate of the bombs. However, it can decrease the firerate of the guns. Unlike the Pursuit, the Ace Pilot does not stop to hover over an area whenever an enemy enters its range. This means that the Ace Pilot is unlikely to be attacking all the time, reducing the effectiveness of the tower. In Hardcore mode, the Ace Pilot can be used as an effective way to deal with flying, lead and enemies with defense that appear early on during the game, such as the Lead, Hefty and Balloon.

Update History

For previous cosmetic variations, see the gallery page.

Patch history

It is stated by BelowNatural that the Ace Pilot was based on the Monkey Ace from the Bloons Tower Defense series. However, its main method of distributing damage and the fact that it gives hidden detection are similar to those of the Aviator from Tower Battles. The Ace Pilot used to share its Level 2 icon with the Mortar's Level 4 icon but upside down. This is the first tower to able to give other towers hidden detection, with the second being the Firework Technician. Strangely, the Soul Stealer and Void Reaver can still spawn a Soul from the Ace Pilot, despite not being a humanoid tower. On Level 2 and 4, the Ace Pilot upgrade names have capitalization errors. Additionally, there are two spaces between "Aerial" and "Ace" in the Level 3 upgrade name instead of one. The Level 5 upgrade name, "The Surging Sky" is a reference to a fake leak of the Level 6 Ace Pilot upgrade. The Level 3 upgrade name, "Aerial Ace" shares its name with the Aerial Ace skin. Both the upgrade name and the skin were also added in the same update. Prior to the change, the Level 3 upgrade was simply just "Better plane".