Talking to mobs
The four ways a conversation starts — push-to-talk, typed chat, interactions, and ambient chatter.
Push-to-talk
Hold V, speak, release. That is the whole interaction.
- Press starts recording and picks a target.
- Release sends what you said and asks for a reply.
- The key is rebindable in Options → Controls → MineYapping → Push to Talk.
Hold it for at least a moment — if less than roughly 30 ms of audio was captured, the mod says Hold V a little longer so I can hear you and sends nothing.
Who you are talking to
- If your crosshair is on a living mob within 8 blocks, that mob wins.
- Otherwise, the nearest living entity within 8 blocks.
- Never yourself, and never a dead entity.
Other players count as living entities too. If nothing is in range you get Look at a mob or move within 8 blocks.
When your turn is sent, the mob turns to look at you and plays its ambient sound, so you can tell who picked up the conversation.
What you see
| Chat line | Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
Listening to <Mob>... | aqua | Recording started |
Thinking... | gray | Turn committed, waiting on the reply |
You: <transcript> | dark gray | What the transcription heard |
<Mob>: <reply> | gold | The reply — also spoken aloud |
| anything else | red / yellow | An error — see Troubleshooting |
These are local system messages. Nobody else on the server sees them.
Typed chat
Type a message in chat while a mob is targeted or within 8 blocks, and it is treated as speech to that mob.
Your message does not reach the server
While a mob is in range, typed chat is intercepted by the mod and not sent as normal server chat. Move away from mobs (or into an empty area) to talk to other players.
This is how to use Mine Yapping without a microphone. Note that the interception happens
even before your key is checked: if you have not run /login, a message typed next to a
mob is swallowed and you get a Run /login <token> error instead of it going to
chat.
Reactions
Right-clicking (using) or hitting a mob makes it react on its own — no key held, no typing. The mod sends "<player> just interacted with you. React naturally." or "…just attacked you…" and the mob answers in character.
This only happens when a key is saved via /login.
Ambient chatter
Every 30 seconds, the mod rolls a dice. On a hit, a random living mob within 8 blocks starts a short conversation with you unprompted.
The chance is 0.5 by default and lives in speechChance in the config file. Set it
to 0 to turn ambient chatter off entirely, or 1 to make it fire on every check. See
Configuration.
Ambient chatter and reactions consume your monthly allowance like any other request.
If you are close to the limit, lower speechChance.
Memory
Each mob remembers the last 4 turns of your conversation with it, keyed by the entity's UUID. Ask a cow "what did I just say?" and it knows; ask the cow next to it and it has no idea.
Memory lives in the server's process, so it is cleared when the backend restarts, and it is capped at 1000 entities (the oldest are evicted first).
A mob's assigned personality and voice are sticky in a stronger way — those are stored in the database and survive restarts, so the same cow keeps sounding like the same cow.
Audio
Replies are spoken through your default system output device, panned left/right by where the mob stands relative to your view, and quieter the further away it is. Playback runs off the game thread, so the game never stutters waiting on speech.
The mod captures at 24 kHz, 16-bit mono and plays back at 24 kHz stereo. If your device cannot do that, you get 24 kHz microphone not supported or 24 kHz stereo playback is not supported.