TotalRPChat

A full rework of the chat and radio systems for Project Zomboid, built with roleplay servers in mind.

Compatibility: Project Zomboid B42 only (versionMin 42.18.0). Current runtime version: v3.0.0.

Features

Chat system

• Complete replacement of the vanilla chat UI (custom rendering, tab panel, text entry, context menu).
• Range-based voice channels — whisper / low / say / yell — with independent range, color, and zombie-noise range per channel.
• Action channels: /me (roleplay action) and /do (event narration, admin/mod-gated by default).
• Non-voice channels: faction, safehouse, general, admin, OOC, and private messages.
• Radio channels: speak over a two-way radio and relay to everyone tuned to the same frequency, plus a scriptedRadio channel for vanilla scripted radio content.
• Chat bubbles over players (with optional avatar/portrait) and typing dots while composing.
• Markdown-ish formatting: *italic* and **bold** with server-configurable colors.
• /roll xdy dice rolling and per-player /color name colors.
• Optional boredom reduction, auto-capitalize/punctuate, hide callout, and language system.
• In-game Survival Guide listing every command; username auto-complete in PMs and /r quick-reply.

Customizable tabs

• Built-in tabs: General, Out Of Character, Private Message, Admin (the last three appear only when their channel is enabled).
• Player-created custom tabs with a custom title, a chosen default input channel, and excluded (hidden) channels.
• Tabs persist across sessions via ModData; the active tab is remembered.
• Tab editor window (gear menu → "Manage chat tabs"): create, rename, delete, pick input channel, add/remove/clear excluded channels.
• Drag-to-reorder, unread tab blinking, and tab cycling via the "Switch chat stream" key.

Radio system

• Voice over radio: speaking on a voice channel while a two-way radio is on and unmuted relays to everyone tuned to the same frequency.
• Three radio bubble types — square/world, player-held, and vehicle radios — shown at the emitting radio.
• Listening- and speaking-range indicators, sound max-range, and radio icon toggles.
• Muting devices and state sync (frequency, volume, battery, headphone, two-way, transmit range) for in-hand, square, and belt radios.
• Belt radios simulated with a fake radio object; battery drain tracked every game minute.
• Radio noise attracts zombies per channel's zombie range.
• Local radio presets and receive-frequency mute settings persist per player through LocalPreferences and never alter server routing.
• Radio status feedback reports the observed device, frequency, volume, effective local range, and device changes through the existing chat surface.
• No-listener and server-side out-of-range acknowledgements are not available in the protocol; local feedback reports only observed device and indicator-range changes and never claims delivery failure.

Avatar system

• Custom player avatar shown in chat bubbles (60×80 PNG/JPEG, transparency supported).
• Upload flow: drop a properly-named file into Zomboid/Lua/avatars/client/<serverIP>/<username>/request/, a path relative to the user's Project Zomboid data directory, then use the upload button.
• Admin/Moderator validation window with approve/reject controls and a pending queue.
• Server-side dimension validation (header parsing, no full image decode) before storing and before approving.

Server / multiplayer

• Server-authoritative message routing: range, line-of-sight, and same-vehicle checks, per-channel delivery, alive-only enforcement.
• Per-channel permissions (faction membership, safehouse ownership, admin level, /do admin-only).
• Persistent chat log per server/date (TRPC/logs/<serverName>/trpc-chat-log-<date>.txt).
• Optional Discord bridge for general chat and a chosen radio frequency.
• Server pushes all chat/radio settings to clients and re-broadcasts them live when sandbox vars change.

Commands

Command	Aliases	Purpose
/say	/s	Normal volume
/whisper	/w	Whisper
/low	/l	Quiet talk
/yell	/y	Shout
/me	—	Roleplay action
/do	—	Event narration (admin/mod by default)
/faction	/f	Faction channel
/safehouse	/sh	Safehouse channel
/all	/g	General channel
/ooc	/o	Out of character
/pm <name>	/p	Private message
/r	—	Reply to last PM
/admin	/a	Admin channel (admin only)
/color [value]	—	Show/set player color
/roll xdy	—	Roll dice (optionally +add)
/language <code>	—	Switch to a learned language (with Languages enabled)

Configuration

Everything is configured through sandbox options:

• Page TRPC: character name display, boredom reduction, language system, bubble portrait/opacity/timer, capitalize, hide callout, markdown colors, Discord bridge, radio color/sound range.
• Page TRPCChannels: per-channel enabled toggle, color, and (where relevant) player and zombie-attract ranges.

Run /color, /roll, or /language with no arguments to print current values and lists. Open the in-game chat info button / Survival Guide for the full command reference.

Installation

1. Server: enable the mod on the dedicated server. The server is required for full multiplayer features (message routing, permissions, avatar moderation, logging, Discord bridge).
2. Clients: subscribe and enable the mod so chat/radio UI and settings work correctly.
3. Configure the sandbox options above to taste.

Solo play works for the chat/radio UI, but server-side features require the server.

Translations

UI, sandbox, and survival guide translations ship for EN, ES, DE, JP, CN, PTBR, RU, and UA. The optional language system ships 182 "Learn <Language>" books plus a "Forget Languages" book.

Community translation help wanted. Some translations (notably JP, CN, and PTBR) were initially generated with AI assistance and may read less naturally than a native speaker would write them. If you spot a mistake, an awkward phrasing, or a better term, please open a pull request or issue — contributions that improve translation quality are very welcome.

Architecture

The codebase is refactored from a single monolithic script into a layered architecture:

42/media/lua/
├── client/trpc/client/   # client-side UI, network, parser
├── server/trpc/server/   # server-side domain, radio, network
└── shared/trpc/          # shared core, utils, registries
    ├── core/             # Logger, EventBus
    └── shared/           # ChannelRegistry, Settings, AvatarStore, utils

Key patterns used throughout:

• ChannelRegistry — data-driven identity for chat channels.
• PermissionRegistry — per-channel permission closures, side-effect free.
• AvatarStore / Settings — shared data-layer modules following the same registry pattern.
• EventBus — decouples network dispatch from UI rendering.
• Logger — centralized, level-filtered logging (no raw print() in production).

Versioning and releases

The runtime version is maintained in Version.lua, separately from the B42 versionMin in 42/mod.info. See CHANGELOG.md for public release history and docs/release-template.md for the manual release checklist.

Credits

This project is derived from Total Immersive Chat System (TICS) by Phibonacci. The base commit retains its original authorship.

Sound assets from the original TICS (keyboard and phoneme sounds) are kept in a local backup and are not distributed in this repository.

License

All rights reserved. No license is granted for redistribution of this code. See the original TICS project for its licensing terms.