The squad surplus voucher (henceforth refereed to as surplus) is a tool item for the Mann. vs Machine Mann-Up mode. Similar to a Tour of Duty ticket (henceforth ToD), the surplus can be used in any Mann-Up mission to receive loot. Unlike a ToD, the surplus must be activated before queuing, and it may be used in missions already completed. It also provides every person* in the lobby a bonus drop. This bonus drop draws from the same loot pool as the 1st item in normal mission loot which includes:

• Random weapon drop
  
• Random robo hat drop (The 9 class specific robo hats that only drop in mvm and the robro 3000)
  
• Random regular hat drop**
  
• Random tool/paint drop**

*Players must appear on the loot screen to receive the surplus item. This means players that "repeat" missions by either leaving or by removing their ticket from their inventory before the last robot/tank is destroyed will not receive the loot. However, those who repeat by playing the same mission they have already completed will receive the surplus loot. Players completing normally will of course also receive the surplus loot.

**The wiki contains tables for hats and paints that can be found via item drops here. On the same page also contains the tools you CANNOT find. Tools you can find include:

• Giftapualts
  
• Dueling mini-games
  
• Name tags
  
• Description tags
  
• Decal tool

Unlike other guides I've made, the data I have access to for determining drop rates is rather small: a lone 5008 data points from myself.

The raw data is:
Total tours: 1304.0 (Missions: 5008)
Total weapons: 4653.0 (92.91%)
Total robot hats: 249.0 (4.97%)
Total Robro 3000s: 3.0 (0.06%)
Total paints: 8.0 (0.16%)
Total tools: 44.0 (0.88%)
Total regular hats: 51.0 (1.02%)

Which suggests the following rates:
Weapon: 93%
Robo Hat: 5%
Paints & Tools: 1%
Drop Hat: 1%

Note: This data is from the normal tour loot, I only have 223 data points on surplus loot which is ridiculously tiny, however it does appear to match with an overwhelming majority being weapons, a few robo hats, and 1 tool.

With these rates, we can now theory craft some potential situations and determine the profitability of a surplus. It will be easier to talk in terms of ref than USD so we will take the current ref price of a surplus at time of writing which is 1 key or ~69.66 ref.

We will start with the average scenario: a full lobby of either completors or burning repeaters receiving 6 weapons. Unfortunately, this average lobby has 0 friends willing to give you the weapon so you only have your weapon drop. You are now down 69.61 ref.

Lets say for the rest of these examples, everyone in the lobby has agreed to hand over the surplus loot back to you. In the previous example this means you have 6 weapons and are down only 69.33 ref now. Congrats!

The second most common scenario is going to be 5 weapons and 1 robo hat, with a 26.5% chance of happening, you are now only out 67.94 ref. This was indeed a very good investment.

The next most common occurrence is 5 weapons followed by a tool or regular hat drop, with a 5.85% chance of happening, the best you can get from this is either a dead of night, or the australium gold paint, both of which are around 35 ref. You are now only down 34.38 ref. Note that this would require getting lucky within the already 5.85% odds, at best you rolled for a paint which has a 1/6 chance of rolling that high of a paint (noble hatter's violet paint is pretty close to australium gold). If my data is accurate, getting a paint over a tool is a 15% chance so in total a ~0.025% for a single person to get the high value paint or 0.15% for the entire lobby (note: getting the dead of night is a ridiculously low chance it's almost negligible to include due to the hat drop pool being 452).

So clearly, you aren't breaking even, or even likely ever to get 50% back. But what is the possible limit to what we can make from 1 surplus? Dead of night is the most expensive dropping item I am aware of at 38.33 ref (ATOW). An individual has a 0.022% chance of rolling one, thus getting 6 in one lobby would have an astounding 1 in 8,527,674,379 1 in 8.819 octillion* chance. For reference, the powerball's jackpot odds are 1 in 292,201,338. But instead of winning multiple millions, you have profited a mere 160.33 ref. Congrats on using up all the luck you had for the rest of your life for $5.


Edit: When first published I accidently did ~0.022^6 instead of ~0.00022^6. Just a small difference of 8.5 octillion. According to this video that is rarer than the probability of earth existing, so ya know, cosmic luck.

The surplus is a huge waste of money, however it does come with a secret power of making high tours more tolerant of you.