@someog: while I'm not an FBA expert I can at least offer some info to get you a head start:
1. No, but it's not too hard to make something of the sort in LUA where you can use a csv or similar file to edit inputs in excel, here is an example:
for next_input in io.lines("input_file.csv") do
Input_to_game=joypad.get()
if string.sub(next_input,1,1)=="1" then
Input_to_game["P1 Up"]=true
else
Input_to_game["P1 Up"]=false
end
.
.
. repeat for other inputs
.
.
joypad.set(Input_to_game)
emu.frameadvance()
end
The inputs are P1 Up, P1 Down, P1 Left, P1 Right, P1 Fire 1, P1 Fire 2, P1 Fire 3, Coin 1, Start 1
(for more then 1 player just replace the '1' with '2' etc.)
In my attempts at TASing FBA I found this approach pretty useful. You'll just need to convert the csv to an actual input file in the end, but since you are a programmer that should be easy. Here is the movie file format in case you need it:
http://tasvideos.org/EmulatorResources/Fbarr/FBM.html
6. yes LUA is implemented and useful in FBA, here is a useful site:
https://code.google.com/p/fbarr/w/list
Hope this helps.
