ns-pvpchat

Fast, keyboard-first PvP chat for FiveM: channels, squad/crew groups, private messages, mentions, server-side anti-spam and moderation. Drop-in replacement for the stock chat resource.

Cross-framework: ESX / QBCore / Qbox / vRP 1.x / standalone, detected at runtime.

Design

Built for reading mid-firefight. At rest there is no panel and no chrome, only the message lines themselves, kept legible over bright or dark footage by weight and a hard text shadow rather than a box drawn over the game. A surface appears only while you are typing. Nothing blurs or filters the frame underneath, and only opacity and transform animate, so the chat stays cheap while the game runs.

Keyboard-first, mouse on demand. T opens the input, Esc closes it, Tab cycles channels / command suggestions. The cursor stays off so it never fights the camera in a fight; middle-click while the input is open to bring it up (to click a tab or a suggestion) and again to hide it. A one-line hint under the input says so. The mouse key is rebindable in FiveM's key settings.

Features

• Channels — GLOBAL, SQUAD, CREW, each its own colour and its own view: a channel only shows its own messages (announcements, DMs and system lines are visible everywhere). Cycle with Tab while typing. Squad/crew route only to your group members (server-side). Players can block a channel in Settings to stop seeing or posting in it.
• Name colour — players set their own colour with /chatcolor; it shows on their name, id and crew tag. Saved per player.
• Crew tag — a player's crew id shows as a badge next to their name.
• Mentions — @name or @id (e.g. @5) highlights and pings the target.
• Private messages — /w or /dm <id> <message>, /r to reply.
• Player ignore — /ignore <id> hides a player's messages for you. Keyed to a stable identifier and stored server-side, so it survives reconnects and never lands on whoever inherits the id later.
• Auto announcements — configurable server messages on a timer.
• Anti-spam — staged: a warning first, then an auto-mute if it continues.
• Banned words — server-side filter; staff edit the list in-game with /filteradd / /filterremove, persisted (no restart).
• Moderation — /mute / /unmute / /announce / /clearall, click-to-moderate on a name, and a staff-only channel (ACE-gated).
• Message reactions — 👍💀🔥 tapbacks on a message (bring up the cursor with middle-click). Only players who saw a message can react; the emoji set is configurable and server-validated (Config.Reactions).
• Staff tags — ADMIN / MOD badges mark staff in chat. Ranks match from ACE, a Discord role, a static identifier list, or a runtime /setstaff <id> <rank> grant — mix freely, no ACE required (Config.StaffTag). A staffer can hide their own tag from Settings → Privacy to blend in.
• Rank / badge tags — pull a leaderboard rank, VIP or clan badge from YOUR resource (Config.Tags.resolve) and show it before the player's name.
• Chat lock — staff freeze public chat during events with /chatlock (commands and staff still work).
• Profile avatars — optional Discord / Steam avatar next to a player's name (server-only credentials — see setup below).
• Show/hide — L cycles visibility (always visible / on new message / hidden); T to type. Only shows while actually in-game. Max 100 chars.
• Full command autocomplete — suggests every registered command (the game's own and other resources' /commands), not just ns-pvpchat's (Config.SuggestGameCommands).
• Drop-in compatible — listens to the stock chat:addMessage / chat:addSuggestion / chat:clear, and fires the chatMessage server event, so resources built on the default chat keep working. Prebuilt UI is bundled in html/ (React + Vite source in ui/); no CDN, fonts bundled locally.

Commands

Switch channels with Tab or the tab bar — there is no per-channel send command.

Admins also moderate by clicking a player's name in chat (bring up the cursor with middle-click first). Moderation commands and the staff channel appear in autocomplete only for staff.

Squad & crew

ns-pvpchat is a chat, not a gang or party system — squad/crew membership is owned by whatever your server already runs. There is no built-in join command; membership is read through a resolve setting in config.lua (Config.Groups) or pushed in from your own resource via the setSquad / setCrew exports.

Verified against qb-core / qbx_core / ox_core / es_extended source, and the framework "empty" values (none, unemployed) count as no group.

Defaults: crew is 'auto' (your gang system), squad has no resolver (wire it to your party/lobby script). Point either at a custom resource or a party statebag like this:

-- config.lua — a custom gang resource:
Config.Groups.crew.resolve = function(src)
    return exports['my_gangs']:GetPlayerGang(src)   -- return a group id, or nil
end

-- …or a party script that uses a statebag under a different key:
Config.Groups.squad.resolve  = 'statebag'
Config.Groups.squad.stateKey = 'lobbyId'

Everyone a source maps to the same id is one squad/crew. You can also push membership from another resource via the exports below.

Crew tag. The badge before a name can show your crew script's real tag (e.g. LSMC), not just the group id. Config.CrewTag.resolve:

• 'auto' (default) — auto-detects a running known crew/gang script and pulls its tag; falls back to the built-in crew group id. Detected out of the box: gfx-crew, crews (LikeManTV), rcore_gangs, av_gangs, vanish_gangs. More can be added on request.
• 'gfx-crew' — target one specific known script.
• a function — any other script:

  Config.CrewTag.resolve = function(src)
      return exports['my_crew']:GetPlayerTag(src)   -- 'LSMC' | { text='LSMC', color='#ff9d47' } | nil
  end
  

• nil — the built-in crew group id.

Requirements

• One supported framework: ESX / QBCore / Qbox / vRP 1.x (or standalone)
• (optional) ox_lib — used for notifications if present

Installation

1. Drop ns-pvpchat into your server resources folder.
2. In server.cfg:
   • Disable the stock chat resource — comment out or remove the ensure chat line. (ns-pvpchat satisfies provide 'chat', so resources that depend on chat keep working.)
   • Start ns-pvpchat (after your framework):

     ensure ns-pvpchat
     

3. Restart the server.
4. Configure channels, commands and anti-spam in config.lua.

ns-pvpchat turns off FiveM's built-in system chat (the bottom-right [ALL] input box) itself, from the client, the same way the stock chat does — so you do not need set resources_useSystemChat false. If you prefer the convar as well it does no harm, but it is read only at server boot.

Settings panel

Players open it with /chatsettings or the gear in the composer. Everything is per-player and saved automatically: font family, message size, chat size (overall scale), accent colour, crew-tag colour, background opacity, fade time, corner/position (or free drag-to-move), timestamps, player IDs, profile-avatar source, channel bar (top tabs vs. next to the input), default channel, blocked channels, mention highlight, autocomplete, mention/DM sounds, unread badges, DM blocking and the ignore list.

Profile avatars — Discord & Steam setup (optional)

Players can show their own Discord or Steam avatar next to their name and in the settings header. This needs API credentials. They are server-only convars — never put them in config.lua, which ships to every client. Keep the token secret; if it ever leaks, reset it.

Enable the feature in config.lua under Config.Avatars (on by default), then add whichever credentials you want below.

Discord avatar — how to get the bot token

1. Open the Discord Developer Portal: https://discord.com/developers/applications
2. New Application → give it any name → Create.
3. In the left menu open Bot → Add Bot (if prompted) → Reset Token → Copy. That copied string is your bot token.
   • No gateway intents, permissions or server invite are required — the token is only used to read public avatars via GET /users/{id}.
4. Add it to server.cfg (server-only — put it above ensure ns-pvpchat, and keep it out of any file you share or commit):

   set sv_pvpchat_discord_bot_token "PASTE_YOUR_BOT_TOKEN_HERE"
   

5. That's it. The player must have Discord running while in game so FiveM provides their discord: identifier (the server looks the avatar up from it). If a player has Discord closed, they just get a monogram placeholder.

Use a bot token, not a webhook URL — webhooks cannot read user profiles. Already run another resource with a Discord bot? ns-pvpchat also falls back to the ns_leaderboard_discord_token convar, so you can reuse an existing token.

Steam avatar — how to get the Web API key

1. Get a key at https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey (sign in, register a domain — any placeholder works — and copy the key).
2. Add it to server.cfg:

   set sv_pvpchat_steam_web_api_key "PASTE_YOUR_STEAM_KEY_HERE"
   

   • ns-pvpchat also reads FiveM's standard steam_webApiKey convar as a fallback, so if you already set that you don't need a second line. Note steam: identifiers only exist at all when steam_webApiKey is set, so Steam avatars require it either way.

Notes

• A player only ever receives their own avatar URLs; nothing about anyone else is exposed to a client.
• Leave a credential unset and that platform simply shows a monogram placeholder.
• Resolved avatars are cached server-side for Config.Avatars.cacheMinutes.
• Each player chooses which avatar (Discord / Steam / off) shows on their messages, in Settings → Appearance → My profile picture.

Staff tags

Mark mods/admins with a badge before their name. Each rank in Config.StaffTag matches from any source — you don't need ACE:

Config.StaffTag.ranks = {
    { key = 'admin',  label = 'ADMIN',  color = '#ff5c8a', ace = 'admin' },
    { key = 'mod',    label = 'MOD',    color = '#5b9dff', discord = '1122334455' },   -- Discord role id
    { key = 'helper', label = 'HELPER', color = '#43d17f', identifiers = { 'license:ab…' } },
}

• ACE — ace = 'admin' (with the group.<ace> fallback).
• Discord role — discord = '<roleId>'. Set Config.StaffTag.discordGuild (your guild id) and the bot token convar sv_pvpchat_discord_bot_token (same as avatars); the bot must be in that guild. Roles are cached per player.
• Manual (static) — identifiers = { 'license:…', 'discord:…' }.
• Manual (runtime) — /setstaff <id> <rankKey> / /unstaff <id> (admin). Saved to a plain JSON file in the resource (data/staff-grants.json) — easy to read, edit or back up. Stored under the player's best id (license → steam → discord → fivem) and matched against any of their identifiers, so hand-edited entries keyed by license:…, steam:…, discord:… all work.

Ranks are checked top-to-bottom; the first match wins. Staff can hide their tag in Settings → Privacy (unless allowHide = false).

Moderation

/mute <id> <seconds> <reason> mutes a player; the reason is optional. When Config.MuteAnnounce is on, the mute is announced in chat for everyone with the duration and reason, and the muted player is told why.

Exports (server)

-- Send a message to one player, or -1 for everyone.
exports['ns-pvpchat']:addMessage(target, {
    mode   = 'system',          -- say | whisper | system | announce
    author = 'Dispatch',
    text   = 'The next round starts in 60 seconds.',
})

-- Send only to the members of a player's squad or crew.
exports['ns-pvpchat']:addGroupMessage('squad', source, {
    mode   = 'system',
    text   = 'Your squad captured the point.',
})

-- Drive squad / crew membership from a gang or lobby resource (pass nil to
-- remove). If you set a `resolve` for that group in config, that source wins.
exports['ns-pvpchat']:setSquad(source, 'alpha')
exports['ns-pvpchat']:setCrew(source, 'redline')

Message modes