Need urgent help/advice on an art project being made with GMod!

[berkozdemir]

Hi everyone! I'm a fairly new Gmod player and just joined the forum. I'm very glad to be a part of this great community! :)

I was messing around with Gmod for almost 3 weeks for the art project I am working on for my master's studies, and apparently it was way harder than I expected to get the information I need doing my research myself. That's why I wanted to share here what I want to do briefly to get some feedback, advices, and to know if it's possible to do it, and if so, to learn the fastest and most straightforward way to make it possible (otherwise I will waste another month without any progression until my project deadline). Any kind of help is very appreciated!

So here is my problem:

Basically what I want is, to make an time based algorithmic composition using an automated script I will write for dummy models (bots/NPCs/fake players/ whatever you want to call) to execute spesific actions on spesific moments. 

For example, after I create a new game, an executed Lua script (or a combination of scripts) will do; 

- Create 4 dummy players
- Teleport each of them to spesific positions
- Give them SMG and shit ton of ammo
- Make them look at spesific directions (Player1 to the wall, Player2 to the sky, Player3 to an object near it etc.)
- On second 1, Player 1 starts shooting with LMB for 5 seconds, Player 2 starts spamming RMB (SMG bomb) on second 2 for 10 seconds, Player 3 and 4 shoots a single RMB on second 3 for once, pauses, and shoots another single RMB on second 15

etc.

So my questions are:

What would be the best way to start, which tools or things I need to check out? I checked Bots, NPCs, SNPCs, NextBots, and Expression 2 tool under WireMod. The closest I could go closer to my goal was with NextBot and regular bots. They look like the only way for me to imitate keyboard-mouse inputs; but there still are many problems; I really couldn't figure out how much spesific I can be with my commands, and I still am not sure if it's possible to control each individual player. Most of the commands I found (console commands for instance) controls all the NPCs instead of a spesific one. 

How spesific can I be with my commands? Can it be like "Player 2, shoot with pistol 4 times (1 bullet per second), then stop for 5 seconds, shoot with pistol 6 times (2 bullets per second), then spray a magazine with SMG"? 

Is it possible to record a game activity of mine as a data (like movement, mouse direction, usage of weapons) and play it back with a dummy model (and edit it)?

I hope my questions were clear (if you're confused about something, please ask about it), and since I'm very stressed about my deadline, I will be excitedly waiting for any answer/advice/assistance you could give me. Have a nice day! :)

[Rubat]

Your best bet if that is all you want to do is to use bots and GM/StartCommand to control them. You will need to come up with your own timing solution as you control bots by issuing them keyboard events (not really but basically)

Any other method would involve creating systems to imitate player-like behavior which will take more time.
Not without mods, and I am unaware of any such mods existing.