One month ago, I published this post to begin actively seeking work as a Lua developer. I never expected to get involved in so many different projects this quickly, some even for top-50 Gmod servers.

In that time, I've fixed bugs caused by the new April update, integrated Gmodstore addons into custom in-house systems, expanded addons with new features, and optimized code.

I've also continued working on my personal project, SCP: Fuga. Data collected from the third showcase indicates that guards only won 5 out of 29 rounds, failed to contain a breach 17 times, and out of 21 tasks they needed to complete, they managed only 2. Because of this, I've started coding new features aimed at improving the guard's performance. I plan to test these in the upcoming playtesting sessions and showcase them, along with a few others, in May.

I'm really happy with my progress so far and look forward to continuing on this path.

Hello,

This developer responded to an offer I posted on GMS.

We have worked together on several scripts, and each time, the work has been done seriously and efficiently. He's also very responsive when it comes to making adjustments. Today, it's rare to find developers as reliable as Bacon on Fire, and I sincerely thank him for his help. You can trust him completely.

He continues to develop GLua systems for my servers.

Another productive month in the books! Great to see clients returning while also welcoming brand-new ones. This month I tackled a mix of challenging projects, some of those were:

1. 16 custom SCP SWEPs plus related containment mechanisms for a huge SCP-RP server
2. Extended a Star Wars RP vendor NPC so the server owner can configure it easly to spawn large entities (for example, starships) at a certain distance to the NPC while automatically preventing overlaps.
3. Modified a custom context menu for a DarkRP server adding new options.

Related to my personal projects, I succesfully carried out a new showcase of the SCP-themed roleplay gamemode I'm developing from scratch. The showcase featured an automated order system that lets scientist issue commands, like "move here" or "stand still", to the Class-D players. Along with additional balance changes, this helped the Foundation side win 15 out of 31 rounds, giving them the boost they needed.

Whether it's supporting newcomers or shipping features for top-50 Garry's Mod communities, I'm thrilled to be developing in this game.

Open to new projects. Feel free to reach out!

June was great! Early this month, I hit an important milestone: since I started actively working as a freelancer in March, I've reached my first $1,000 in sales.

One of the biggest challenges in this line of work is achieving a steady stream of projects. I'm pleased to have new clients and to be working with existing ones, which was very much the case this month, with collaborations including:

1. Optimized a custom addon, reducing execution time of core functionalities by over 300%
2. Made a recently uploaded addon to Gmodstore, Nexus Coinflip, compatible with Voidcases by replacing its use of the Nexus Inventory with Voidcases' own inventory
3. Migrated a file-based storage system (which design was similar to MongoDB's document structure) from an addon to a SQL-based schema

For SCP: Fuga, I shifted focus from coding to do other tasks as reviewing collected data, planning the next showcase and designing the new map I want to add to the project.

Thanks for checking out my monthly report! If you're cooking something and need a hand, let's talk!

My fourth month working as a freelancer was awesome, as I reached my first $1,000 in a single month.

All these great results and the experience I've gained working with clients have inspired me to launch my own addon on GmodStore, which I started developing just last week. With this addon, DarkRP server owners will be able to create their own interactable entities, following a pattern I've recognized in many Gmodstore addons.

For now, I'll take a break from coding until the 4th of August. When I resume coding, I'll share updates on this new project and on SCP: Fuga. I'll keep my Discord online, so feel free to message me if you'd like to talk about work or any of my projects.

Thanks for stopping by!

A DarkRP in gm_construct

In August, in addition to working with clients, I focused on my new no-code tool project that I started in July. Since beginning in mid-July, I have written more than 9,000 lines of code, including 4,302 dedicated to 166 unit test cases across 21 test groups created with GLuaTest to automatically test the addon. These tests, which I have been sharing in the waywo thread on the GmodStore Discord, have helped me detect and address issues while coding and adding new features to the addon.

Although unit testing provides a strong advantage on the technical side, it is vital to verify the operational feasibility of a product. For example, with SCP: Fuga I organized 17 playtesting sessions and 4 showcases that helped me and my team deliver a better product. In this case, by testing as early as possible, I was able to organize a playtesting session on Friday, August 29, with 13 players participating.

The objective was to determine whether players could use the interfaces and mechanics to farm money. This session was special for me, as it was my first time personally hosting using the DarkRP gamemode. The map for that occasion was, oddly enough, gm_construct, as it is a map that everyone has downloaded and it offers many rooms where I could place players to farm without disturbance.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly and the objective was accomplished, as shown in the graph. At the end of the session, the combined wealth of all players was $93,460, with an average of $7,189 per player. Another highlight was that no bugs were encountered, apart from one minor client-side error that appeared only twice.

Graphical representation showing that players were able to generate DarkRP money with the addon. The dataset records the amount of money held by each connected player every second the server was running. The x-axis represents time (with a small gap at the beginning where no players were connected) and the y-axis represents the amount of money. The yellow line shows the total amount of money held by all connected players, while the blue line shows the average amount held per player. For context, each player started with $1,000 and received a salary of $100 every 160 seconds

These results, together with the strong support I received from playtesters, motivate me to continue this endeavour. I plan to deliver more during September while working with my current and new clients as a freelancer, as well as arranging new developments for SCP: Fuga.

Thank you for reading my report!

My sixth month as a Freelancer

Six months ago, in March, I started freelancing. What I thought would just be a few gigs here and there to earn some extra money while job hunting turned into something much bigger, with my code now being rewarded and used on several servers, including some ranked among the top 50 most played worldwide.

I celebrated this milestone by coding a lot. I wrote more than 6,000 lines of code for my no-code economic entities creator tool, extending the addon with new features and strengthening it with additional unit tests. The testing suite was expanded with 4,307 new lines from 122 test cases, bringing the total to 288 test cases across 39 test groups.

I carried out a playtest for this latest version on September 30. Although one objective was still to check whether players could make money, others included observing how they reacted to the new mechanics, such as scarcity. Each of these sessions brings us closer to a showcase, where we will see the addon tested in conditions that closely resemble a real application.

Another project I playtested was a new experiment to be featured in the upcoming map of SCP: Fuga, which is currently being developed by the team. In this experiment or mini-game, players must identify the square with a slightly different color tone and move to it.

Thanks for checking out my monthly report, cheers!

Hired Bacon for General Development of my server back in June 2025.

Not only did he tackle the unique coding of my server without issue, he was able to consistently deliver quality products. Bacon is always excellent with communicating things like deadlines, project details, and demos. He also keeps himself organized with his own tools for keeping track of what you might want him to make for you (In my case, SWEPs). When I first met with him to discuss details of the project he had no issues fulfilling my requests.

I’d strongly recommend him for any development projects you might have!

Creating a Web App Dashboard for staff performance

In October I went outside my confort zone and took on a project that involved more technologies than I usually work with: A web app.

A client contacted me to create a staff performance dashboard. The dashboard pulls data from his DarkRP server, which is currently ranked among the top 50 most played Garry’s Mod servers, and displays information on both individual staff performance and the overall team performance.

To collect data, I wrote a Lua program similar to the one I developed for my thesis. To implement it, I had to understand how the custom addons worked, such as their on-duty reward system and AFK system (which I revamped as part of the test for getting this job), and I made a few minor modifications to them. For example, I set up new hooks.

That data is stored in a MySQL database connected to the gmod server. The backend of the web app also connects to this database to retrieve the data.

To build the web app, I used Next.js with Tailwind CSS and TypeScript. The app currently has two sections: one where users can view the overall staff performance along with the top three and worst three staff members based on specific metrics, and another with a paginated table listing all staff and their statistics, which also allows searching for specific members. The overall staff performance is displayed through six key performance indicators.

To visualize how well each staff member is performing, I chose to use cards, similar to how FIFA does with players. Each card displays the admin's Steam profile picture, name, and statistics. I used the Steam API to retrieve the first two.

As well as working on this new endeavour, I made an emplacement system based on a client's gamemode inventory. It allows players to place structures, like barriers, and then build or repair them with a wrench if they have enough materials. My personal projects also continued during October, with one set to start operating this month.

Thanks for stopping by to read my monthly report!

2025 end

This year, full of new experiences, projects, and satisfied clients, has come to an end. Over the last two months, I worked mainly on my personal projects, both the DarkRP addon and SCP: Fuga. For the latter, this month I ran a playtesting session for a new experiment to be added to the next map.

Even though in October I had a major disappointment with a client who didn't pay me for a job I worked on for two weeks, towards one client surprised me asking for something new: NPCs. So, I started working on creating NPCs using the Nextbot technology that Garry's Mod provides with the SB Advanced Nextbots base.

Another tech-related highlight is that for the DarkRP addon I've been building a framework to create minigames, such as Simon Says or choosing the correct answer. I still have a few things to develop related to this, but I expect that in January or February I'll organize a new playtesting session for this project, where players will be able to play these minigames.

To wrap up, I want to congratulate myself because this post was the most-read post by a user this whole year, with 945 views at the time of posting this comment. I'm grateful to Pivity, to my clients, to everyone who makes gmodstore possible (including the curators), and to anyone who, throughout this year, took an interest in reading what this gmod freelancer has to say.

Happy New Year's Eve, hope we'll see each other next year!

One year as a full-time freelance developer. Here's where I'm at:

After nearly a year of freelancing part-time while finishing my Computer Science degree, I went full-time in March. What I thought would just be a few gigs here and there turned into something much bigger, with my code now running on servers used by thousands of players daily, some ranked among the top 50 Garry's Mod most played worldwide.

This first year, I took on more clients, bigger projects, and my income grew significantly. But the real milestone wasn't the money. It was realizing that everything I had been building over the past year, the testing discipline, the client relationships, the international work, had set the foundation for this.

My Project Management knowledge also played a bigger role than I expected. It helped me negotiate with clients, plan deliveries, and keep multiple projects running without losing track of anything.

I'm really happy with my progress so far and look forward to continuing on this path.

If you're working on something and need a developer, feel free to reach out.

The V2 Loadout Menu for Comunidad Reborn

One of the headline features of the V2 update for Comunidad Reborn, the biggest Spanish-speaking TTT server, was a full rework on the player loadout system. I built all of it: the menu UI, the networking and the integration with the server leveling system. In this April monthly report I want to break down how it works, including one decision I think is worth explaining in detail.

The community is trackable on its public listings (BattleMetrics/GameTracker) and on the Comunidad Reborn site.

Firstly, I created the UI without using Derma, GMod's native UI library. Instead I built it with a web stack, HTML, CSS, and JS, rendered through a DHTML panel. Working with that stack was easier than Derma. For starters, it is more modularized: HTML for layout, CSS for style, and JS for behaviour. It also let me test it outside the game by just opening the files in my browser..

Players configure a separate loadout per role, Inocente, Traidor, and Detective, or fall back to a shared default with a single toggle. Each role has primary, secondary, and grenade slots (Detective has a fourth slot for their playermodel) with their skins.

Comunidad Reborn runs a prestige & level system. The menu reads that state directly. Earned items are selectable, and locked items show exactly what unlocks them. The progression system was already the backbone of the server, so the goal was to make the loadout menu an extension of it rather than a separate cosmetic shop.

On the networking side, one thing I worked on was whether it is necessary to send the player loadout every time the player connects. On connect, the server needs the loadout in memory to grant weapons, and the client needs a copy to display it. The naive approach sends the full loadout to every client on every connect, even when the client already has the identical loadout cached from a previous session. Instead, both sides compute a CRC of the loadout, and the client sends its CRC on connect. If it matches the server's, the client's copy is already correct and the server sends nothing; if not, the server sends the full payload. This is safe because the CRC only gates the display copy: the server always loads the authoritative loadout from its own storage and grants weapons from that, so a false CRC can only make a client's own menu wrong to itself, never change what the server gives it.

The system shipped with V2. In under a week, more than 250 players have used it. If you want to see it live or check the community, the public server trackers and the Comunidad Reborn page are the place to look.

Thanks for reading!

Cannot Recommend Bacon enough, he was hired to turn my Models into Sweps for my TTT server and he did not disappoint, I gave a long list of demands/was constantly changing and adding to things and he was able to handle it within the week and for an outstanding price point, I look forward to using his services again as soon as he is able. Truly a one of a kind content creator in the platform!

Really good developer and chill I vouch if anyone would like to hire him

Animating in Lua

These past months I have let my reviews keep this post active, but I have things to tell you about what I've been up to in June and July. I've been working on my animation skills, and doing it entirely in code, without using any extension such as wiltOS, or touching a modeling program like Blender.

You might be thinking: how? Animations are tied to models, so surely they have to be made in Blender. The thing is that animations, contained in sequences, are actually tied to the model's skeleton, and that skeleton is usually the same across models. Model creators reuse it because it comes with benefits, such as having a large set of animations available from the get-go. So by working with the skeleton's bones and the sequences already compiled into the model, tweaking things like angles, positions, animation weights and playback rate, I can build animations in code alone that work on every playermodel in the base game and on most workshop playermodels.

The same animation on a base game playermodel and a workshop one.

Sequences and bones are different matters. The former are simpler, though limited to the animations already compiled into the model, most of them related to attacks or movement. That limit isn't as restrictive as it sounds, since there are more than 400 to choose from and combine. Bone manipulation allows for more expressiveness, at the cost of meticulously positioning every bone involved in the animation you want.

Fine hand movement on a workshop playermodel, built with bone manipulation.

Both approaches can be applied to animate not only playermodels, but the player's viewmodel, the POV, as well. That one is a different animation, built on its own, and if the camera is in third person, like most well-known lightsaber addons, then it isn't necessary at all.

Drinking milk in first and third person. The lower the player's health, the more the hands jitter. This is one of the SWEPs made for The Morphine Grid

A benefit of working in code is that the animations can be flexible. For example, we can make the hands jitter depending on the player's health. Another example is an attack animation that requires jumping: if the player is already in the air, there's no need to play the jump animation and we can go straight to the throw. To choreograph animations like that one, I used a state machine pattern to bring the behaviour down into code. At the start of the animation, if the player is on the ground we go into the jump state, and once a certain height is reached, into the flip state. If the player was already airborne, we go straight to the flip state.

Already airborne, so the animation on the Workshop playermodel skips the jump state and goes straight to the flip. Compare it with the first clip, where the player starts grounded and the jump plays first.

Outside of animation, June and July had more things going on. I connected Sonicboom44 with a modeler, and turned the worldmodels and viewmodels they produced into 19 SWEPs for The Morphine Grid, his TTT server, replacing their tracers with custom laser ones and animating three of them. I also created the VIP shop for Super Weebs United's upcoming cinema server, which included building an underglow system and a particle system. Both are configurable, so the server owner can add as many underglows and particles as she wants without a developer. Once the system was finished, she requested 52 underglows, which I delivered.

7 underglows and 2 particles made for SWU's upcoming cinema server.

Going into web development, I learned Astro and used it to build the site for Nexus Latam, a Counter-Strike 1.6 community, pulling live server data through the Source Query API and handling payments with Mercado Pago and PayPal. I chose Astro because it makes adding content after delivery easy, with no technical knowledge needed: you drop a .md file into a folder and it becomes a page, routed automatically. It's waiting to be deployed publicly.

I took on other jobs as well, like a scoreboard for a Star Wars RP server and a Moat-style TTT server I started building for a client. Thanks for reading my report! Next month I will show you how the TTT server is looking. If you're working on something and need a developer, feel free to reach out!

I had the opportunity to work with Bacon on Fire, and I was genuinely impressed by the level of dedication, effort, and professionalism he brought to the project. From the very beginning, he showed a strong commitment to delivering high-quality work and made sure that every detail was carefully reviewed.

He didn’t stop until everything was working exactly as it should, constantly checking, improving, and refining even the smallest details. His attention to detail, patience, and willingness to put in the extra effort really stood out.

Overall, I’m extremely satisfied with the experience and the final result. I would definitely recommend working with Bacon on Fire to anyone looking for someone reliable, dedicated, and truly committed to delivering excellent work. Easily a 10/10.

Hey!

I started working with him last week, and he is one of the friendliest people I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with in a long time. He does his job correctly, and whenever he is asked to do something, he gets it done without any hesitation. Fair prices for fair products, and I will definitely continue working with him.

Thank you very much!