Chat commands should only be sent to the relevant players.

[Stan]

Currently all commands are sent to all players, even the player sending them. See ​Phab:D4775.

For most commands this is intended as you need them to get the correct state. Chat commands however should only be sent to the relevant players.

I believe it should go as follows:

• Observer chat messages should only be sent to other observers. See also: #5816
• Ally message go to allies
• Enemy messages go to everyone you're not allied or neutral with
• Global message go to everyone.

This ticket does not cover the fact the server will receive all the messages, which would ideally be fixed by having dedicated trustworthy servers see ​Phab:D3973 and be encrypted see: #5467

Notice that the network code will somehow have to keep track of diplomacy changes, and this needs to be done carefully.

[Itms]

Replying to Stan:

Notice that the network code will somehow have to keep track of diplomacy changes, and this needs to be done carefully.

I don't think so. Currently, diplomacy-dependant chat works like this:

1. a client sends a chat command to the server
2. the server relays it to everyone
3. each client determines, using simulation data, whether to display the chat message (this can be modded and used to cheat)

A fix to this ticket should change the design to the following:

1. a client wants to send a message, and it determines, using simulation data, who the recipients are
2. the client sends the chat command to the server, and the command contains the list of recipients (this could be an optional field, to preserve the previous "broadcast to everyone" behavior by default, and this default behavior can be improved with an adapted version of ​Phab:D4775)
3. the server relays it to recipients only
4. each recipient displays it

This design change doesn't require the network to be aware of the diplomacy. It is an involved change that will need rewriting a bit of code, but the bulk of the changes will be limited to:

• adding the recipients system to the network code
• moving the moddable logic from the receivers to the sender

[Stan]

Indeed that's a better design. I suppose one could change post network commands to accept either a list of players or a playermask (I think we use that somewhere else?)

• -1 => INVALID_PLAYER => All players
• 0000 0001 player 1 etc
• 0000 0010 player 2 etc

[phosit]

Would the "list of recipients" only be inside chat-messages or (optionally) in all messages-types?

[Stan]

I suppose all messages could have it. For instance map ping is not a chat command, yet you don't want to send it to players that are not either observers or allies.

[Stan]

Push back

[phosit]

Whith this patch the server sends messages from the chat dialog only to the adressee and to the client who sent it.