Red Monkey

Red Monkeys are the product of genetic engineering and experimentation by the Von Braun 's scientists, augmented by the presence of Annelid parasites. Originally African squirrel monkeys, their latent psionic abilities have been brought to fruition both by the experiments performed on them and by the Many's influence. Nearly identical to their regular counterparts, Red Monkeys are mainly differentiated by their pyrokinesis attack, which does more damage and has a nastier splash damage.

Levels Encountered
Red Monkeys tend to appear around the Operations Deck, and will entirely replace regular Monkeys when arriving on the Recreation Deck, as well as appearing up until Command Deck.

Strategy
Although Red Monkeys aren't that much different on the surface compared to regular Blue Monkeys, their significantly more potent psionic abilities mean that they can do a huge amount of damage if you're not careful. A stray Pyrokinesis has enough splash damage that it can ruin your day even if you dodge it. While the strategy involved in dealing with Red Monkeys is mostly unchanged, with melee engagement preferable, it's worth using an extra degree of caution when around them in the later stages of the game.


 * If you close to melee range, both types of monkeys attack with claws and teeth instead, but they do less damage that way than with their psionic attack. This is especially true in case of red monkeys, since their fireballs deal almost four times the melee damage, their projectiles are faster, and their splash damage is harder to avoid.
 * Their ranged attack deals a distance-independent splash damage. That means getting further from it (but still within the range of explosion) won't reduce the damage in any way, only getting out of the range of explosion will result in no damage at all.
 * Because of their small size, Monkeys can be hard to hit, but they're especially difficult to tag with melee weapons. If you do close for melee combat, crouch down to get a better chance of hitting them.
 * Researching Monkey's brain (requires skill 1 and a small amount of Fermium) will give you a damage bonus against all Monkeys.

Trivia

 * Monkeys often carry bags of Chips. You can eat these to gain back a single lost Hit Point, but they're too bulky to bother carrying around in quantity. You can also recycle them.