What I'm trying to do is create a ship via SEXP, give it orders and an IFF, and make a directive to destroy it (which will then start a timer to spawn another ship). I have this working (without the timer) in a small test mission, Test.fs2.
I'm trying to use this method in another mission, WeaponsTestNOMOD.fs2, and the directive is never being fulfilled. I'm really not sure at this point what's going wrong. I thought I couldn't use a variable containing a ship name in a is-destroyed-delay SEXP, but Test.fs2 proves I can.
Download for both missions.
Also: Test.fs2 crashes when accessing the weapon select screen (at least, it does on my machine). I have no frakking clue why this is.