[Seeking Advice] Bring X NPC to Y NPC

[Diogenes of Sinope]

Hey, I'm new-ish to conditions and effects in FCS, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to script the following sequence of events:

1. Player rescues X NPC from prison.
2. Player escorts X NPC to Y NPC (distance = half map).
3. X NPC drops "follow mission target" or drops squad/faction with player.

I'm trying to avoid making this work like a bounty because I don't want the player to have to hoist X NPC over the shoulder, but otherwise each of these steps is open to interpretation. For instance, I don't care whether X NPC follows the player or joins the player faction, but I want X NPC to stop following or leave the player faction during conversation when X NPC arrives at Y NPC. I think I know how to make it work with "follow mission target", but it might cause me to make some compromises that I want to avoid.

I could save myself a lot of scripting if I could just let the player recruit X NPC and then dismiss X NPC (ideally via conversation) once X NPC reaches Y NPC. Can anyone suggest a way to do this in the current build?

Thank you so much for your help!

Sincerely,
Dio

[Sol Lignum]

I'm not very familiar with those conditions either, but i'm thinking that maybe you could script X NPC following as an extended bodyguard contract, for certain number of days needed to reach the destination, then, when player arrives to the destination, X NPC would split out with a "contract ends" type of dialogue. That would make mission timed though, and i'm uncertain whether the X NPC will keep following your designated target, or will go roaming after "contract" expires. But that's just an idea. Maybe you'll be able to write the dialogue for Y NPC that would retreive X NPC from player's squad, in case player arrives to the destination in time and won't have to wait for a very long

If this is a bad option, then i'm sorry for wasting your time and i hope someone qualified will be able to help you out

[Diogenes of Sinope]

That's pretty much what I was thinking, except that I added DA_EFFECT_RELATIONS 100 to Y NPC's "quest complete" dialogue so that the contract with X NPC will end when the 'player ally' worldstate is true. I'm testing this now.

The problem with this method is that it's not very robust. I can imagine a few ways to break it by accident. It would be so easy if I could figure out how to get X NPC to leave the player squad.