Each Op has a few kinds of requirements to accept it:
* Zone requirements (your nation needs to / needs to not control certain zone)
* Medal rank (of course)
* Server-wide reps of other ops since the last campaign tally. Generally 10~16 of the previous rank, although some ops depend on two others.
It was really hard for me to narrow down the Medal requirements because I was basically capped medal rank to start, so there's almost no information about that here.
My notes on this kind of suck and it's stupidly complicated so this is going to be a rough ride, but here we go:
--snip--
Avereith and I multiboxed unlocked these for the server for all 3 nations. Other than Cut and Cauterize, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Multiboxing has huge advantages here because you can turn in completions and unlock ops multiple times as quickly. I bet the main challenge you're going to have these days on populous servers is getting the beastmen some zones so you can unlock the ops like Hawk Eye. That was a problem even back on Lakshmi before Hoxne Earring.
Some of these are incorrect, I've done hundreds if not thousands of ops over the last year and have a ridiculous amount of information compiled for campaign and ops now and I still feel like it's barely scratching the surface of a system that was never and will never fully be explained to us.
As Byrth says, there's at least three components to the requirements for an op being available, one is player based (a minimum medal ranking), one is region based (a zone can require to be under your nation control, any allied control, or beastman control) which only updates on conquest tally, and a server based component which is mainly impacted by the number of completions.
By default with no modification, this number is about 20, but having things like the corresponding tactical assesment strategy in place or the commander picked will drop this as low as only ~5 clears needed, and I'm fairly certain that nation stats (supplies, etc) play a part in this as well.
Some ops in a category are also "linked" in that once you unlock tier II or tier III, a paired op series also unlocks that tier, so you essentially share progress by completing one or the other, and can focus on the less terrible one.
Anyways, some corrections (other than it's actually ~20, not 10-16 for each unless you have a matching strategy in place):
* Search and Seizure - Doesn't require beastman control one of your nation's zones, but any of the non-northland non-stronghold ones. You can go do it in a Garlaige if you're with Sandy, etc.
* Vanguard-X, Crimson Domino, Magna Cache, Steel Resolve - Requires your nation owning your four nation outdoors zones (not the dungeon zone, not the stronghold). Only one is needed, but you can only do this op to the ones they hold. IV requires your nation specifically to own either Beauc or Xarc.
* Smokescreen - I-IV all require beastman control of a zone, stronghold irrelevant. V requires them to control one of the four northlands zones.
* Stronghold fight - Nation needs to control all 7 of their zones, which means taking over the stronghold, which also isn't possible unless they control all 6 non-stronghold the prior week. So basically you need to have control of all 6 to unlock taking over the stronghold but additionally keep control of the previous 6 for a second week in a row as well.
* By Light of Fire - This unlocks the same time as Pit Spider III, just needed II completions.
* Kinslayer: Baileys, Keep - Requires the Baileys/Keep under beastman control
* Aegis Scream - I-IV require owning nation zones as you need to do defensive campaign battles in them. V requires owning the northland zones instead.
* Hawk Eye, Slaughterhouse - Beastman controlled outdoors zones. IV is northlands as mentioned.
* Prying Eyes II - Beastmen need to control one of the Zvahl zones.
* Bailey Borer - Allies need to control one of the Zvahl zones.
There may be a fourth requirement of certain nation stats like reconnaissance and the like for some to even appear. Sometimes an op that should be available isn't right after reset, but shows up later in the week. These stats may be what "actually" unlocks some ops as opposed to repeated completions, and completions of ops just happen to increase the relevant stats needed for the next tiers.
My theory on this is because in the last Vanabout, there were objectives several times for Material Storm and Stock and Awe only, but despite 99% of people only doing these, I saw many other ops in other categories getting unlocked as well. It's possible people were doing them on their own but given how rarely I see a single change in that menu without someone I know actively doing them, I'm a bit suspect on that.
While repeating escorts or cut and cauterize is mind numbing, the bigger issue is often zone control, as unless you're micromanaging campaign all week, your nation will oft lose zones unless you're in Sandy which apparently just permanently owns everything (which causes issues itself for doing beastman-owned ops lol).
On Bahamut, Xarc and Beauc have been held by Sandy for like 3 months now and it's like 50x harder to turn an allied zone over to your control than taking it over from beastmen. Bastok and Windurst also have the issue of rarely managing to hold all 6 regular zones two weeks in a row for the stronghold ops.
It's nice to see more interest in it again though because the more people working on it the less headache it is for everyone doing it. I'd reccommend bouncing between all three cities weekly and seeing what ops are unlocked already because it might save people the effort of doing hours of repeats. Last week I caught Cut and Cauterize I/II/III already open and wanted to cheer, doing that 40x myself previously was hell and I was purposefully avoiding it again lol.
