The special missions appear to be tied to recruit level. First unlocks when any recruit hits level 20.
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Someone on reddit used the data explorer and found when you complete your level 40 mission you unlock the new GC rank.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ting_level_40/
/Thread
Ah. I have 8 myself, but I'm alright with how they are. My girlfriend on the other hand... she's been trying to hunt down some very specific NPCs.
https://67.media.tumblr.com/6723fc39...o1_r1_1280.png
I told her to just hire some to have 8/8 that she can switch out, I told her she could always dismiss them... but I wasn't 100% when I said that. Got scared for my life for a moment there, lol.
This doc received an update since someone datamined all the stats for all the units levels depending on their job. So manually setting the stats of your units is already obsolete. Same for the required missions' stats, we have everything 'til Lv.35.
But there's still room for improvements. For example, this doc from /u/FFXIV_Machinist makes you choose your recruits via their names... but that doesn't serve any purpose since you can change the class of your recruits, meaning that the link between the name of a recruit and its class isn't set in stone. Another thing is that toggling recruits in and out quickly isn't possible on that doc, you have to go down each dropdown list.
And I'm pretty sure that sooner than later we'll see real "squadron solvers" where you put all your raw stats and the tool tells you what's the best combination.