Talker

Overview

The Talker component handles all speech-related behavior for an entity, including displaying animated dialogue bubbles (via FollowText), managing persistent "chatter" messages (used for NPC dialogue and ambient speech), supporting network synchronization, and integrating with the chat system. It is used by both player and NPC characters to say lines, process dialogue scripts, and respond to chatter triggers.

Dependencies & Tags

• Components: Relies on health (for death state checks), sleeper (for sleep state checks), and revivablecorpse (to allow speech from corpses).
• Tags: Adds/Removes "ignoretalking" tag when IgnoreAll/StopIgnoringAll is called (master only).
• Network Fields: Defines multiple net_* fields for chatter state synchronization (strtbl, strid, strtime, forcetext, echotochatpriority), listening on "chatterdirty" event on clients.

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
inst	Entity	(passed to constructor)	Reference to the entity the component is attached to.
task	Task?	nil	Active thread/task ID for the current speech sequence (used to cancel ongoing speech).
ignoring	{ [any]: boolean }?	nil	Table of sources that are currently ignored; enables "ignoretalking" tag when non-nil.
mod_str_fn	function(string): string?	nil	Optional function to modify spoken strings before display.
offset	Vector3?	nil	Static offset for follow-text; overridden by offset_fn.
offset_fn	function(Entity): Vector3?	nil	Optional function that returns dynamic offset per frame.
disablefollowtext	boolean?	nil	If truthy, disables creation of FollowText widget.
resolvechatterfn	function(inst, strid, strtbl): string?	nil	Optional override for resolving chatter string IDs.
widget	FollowText?	nil	Reference to the active follow-text widget instance.

Main Functions

SetOffsetFn(fn)

• Description: Sets a function that computes the per-frame offset for the follow-text widget relative to the entity. Replaces static offset.
• Parameters:
  • fn (function(Entity): Vector3): A callback returning the offset vector for the text display.

MakeChatter()

• Description: Initializes the chatter networked state structure (strtbl, strid, etc.) and sets up the "chatterdirty" event listener on non-master clients.
• Parameters: None.

Chatter(strtbl, strid, time, forcetext, echotochatpriority)

• Description: Triggers a one-time chatter message. For master only; sets chatter state and dispatches chatterdirty to clients. If forcetext is true, speaks with noanim=false and force=true.
• Parameters:
  • strtbl (string): Dot-separated path to the localization table (e.g., "CHATTER.WILSON.HAPPY").
  • strid (number?, default 0): Index into the resolved table entry; if 0, uses the table value directly.
  • time (number?, default 0): Duration to display the chatter before canceling; if > 0, used for Say.
  • forcetext (boolean?): If true, forces speech (ignoring sleep/death/silence state).
  • echotochatpriority (number?): Priority level (CHATPRIORITIES.*) to echo to nearby players' chat; 0 or nil disables chat replication.

ShutUp()

• Description: Immediately cancels any ongoing speech and clears active chatter state. Hides follow-text and kills pending tasks.

Say(script, time, noanim, force, nobroadcast, colour, text_filter_context, original_author_netid, onfinishedlinesfn, sgparam)

• Description: Begins speaking a sequence of lines (string or array of Line objects). Handles animation, network broadcast, follow-text display, word filtering, and post-speech events.
• Parameters:
  • script (string | Line[]): Single message string or array of Line objects.
  • time (number?, default nil): Duration per line (applies only if script is a string).
  • noanim (boolean?, default false): Skip talking animation if true.
  • force (boolean?, default false): Ignore ignoring state, dead, or sleeping conditions.
  • nobroadcast (boolean?, default false): Suppress network broadcast of speech (client-side only).
  • colour ({r,g,b,a}?, default nil): Custom RGBA color for the text; falls back to self.colour.
  • text_filter_context (number?, default nil): Context for word filtering (e.g., TEXT_FILTER_CTX_GAME).
  • original_author_netid (number?, default nil): NetID of the original message author (used for filtering).
  • onfinishedlinesfn (function(Entity)?, default nil): Callback invoked when the last line finishes.
  • sgparam (any?, default nil): Custom state parameter passed to events and callbacks.

IgnoreAll(source)

• Description: Adds a source to the ignore list; enables the "ignoretalking" tag on master. Subsequent Say calls are blocked unless force=true.
• Parameters:
  • source (any?, default self): Identifier for the ignoring source.

StopIgnoringAll(source)

• Description: Removes a source from the ignore list; removes "ignoretalking" tag if list is empty. Restores normal speech behavior.
• Parameters:
  • source (any?, default self): Identifier for the ignoring source.

Events & Listeners

• Listens For:
  • "chatterdirty" — triggers OnChatterDirty, which resolves and speaks the chatter string.
• Emits:
  • "ontalk" — fired when a line is spoken; payload: { noanim = boolean, duration = number, sgparam = any }.
  • "donetalking" — fired after the final line completes; payload: none.
  • TheNet:Talker(...) — internal network call (not a pushEvent).