ceaikaemotes

ok so basically this lets you emote with other people who have the mod, without needing the game server to install it. there's 16 emotes for pilots and titans, the wheel from party pack, music that gets quieter as you walk away, and traversal for billy bounce and griddy.

this is experimental lol. you need Ion and the included DLL. this isn't a mod that makes everyone on a vanilla client see you dancing. they need ceaikaemotes too, with the same relay and room key.

installing it

close the game first. from the client zip, put mods/ceaikaemotes in R2Northstar/mods, and put the contents of plugins in R2Northstar/plugins. the WAV folder goes next to the DLL, don't leave it behind. replace your old ceaikaemotes folder when updating rather than keeping two copies.

if you install it as a Northstar package instead, keep the whole package together under R2Northstar/packages/<package name>. don't also install a second manual copy. the native helper uses Windows audio, so this release is for Windows Ion; Linux/Wine behaviour hasn't been verified here.

the relay address and shared room key are included, and emotes are enabled by default. join a match and accept the in-game verification prompt. it remembers that relay, so after that the login and session renewal happen automatically. no console commands needed. Ion still needs HTTP enabled.

the prompt matters because the mod sends a fresh, short-lived EA authentication code to the relay, which checks it with Respawn. it doesn't ask for your EA password. only allow a relay you trust. Mod Settings > ceaikaemotes > Online emotes lets you review or forget the permission and turn syncing off.

the bundled key is public. it only selects/accesses the emote room, it isn't a VPS password or admin login. if you previously put a different emkey, em_url or em_enabled 0 in your autoexec, that will override these defaults. you can still use those commands for another relay or to turn this one off. your enabled setting and relay permission are saved in your profile. a custom address/key can still go in your own autoexec. changing the relay address needs a new approval.

hold B for the wheel, scroll for the other page (Q/E also works), release to choose, or Escape to cancel. the mod settings have wheel controls and a traversal toggle. only billy bounce and griddy can move, and they use crouch speed. jumping or attacking stops the emote. titan melee stops it too.

titans

all 16 dances work on ion, scorch, northstar, ronin, tone, legion and monarch, plus the six prime models. use the same wheel. the camera moves farther back so your titan actually fits.

the rigs keep their own proportions. cockpit parts stay in their closed pose and the atlas fingers use their normal in-game offsets. bulky titans can still clip their arms or slide their feet a bit. this is animation retargeting, not a new collision system.

rebinding the wheel

in Mod Settings > ceaikaemotes > Emote wheel controls, choose B, G, H or J for hold-to-open, or enable D-pad Down for a controller. you can also set either control to Unbound.

for another keyboard key, bind the console command, for example:

bind "F4" "em_wheel"

that opens the wheel with a tap, then you click an emote. it doesn't use release-to-select. arbitrary hold-to-open bindings aren't supported currently.

commands

how this actually works

the relay just tells the other clients which emote you picked and how long it's been playing. their game already knows where your pilot or titan is. each client puts an animated copy there, hides the normal player model locally, and plays its own copy of the music at the right point. no audio files are being streamed through the VPS.

the DLL handles the bits scripts couldn't do reliably: hiding the real model and its weapons, the local third person camera, the music mixer, and requesting the fresh EA code for relay authentication. it doesn't change sv_cheats, send commands to the game server, or make people without the mod see the emote.

to keep the overhead down, idle music closes its audio device and the DLL polls less often when nothing is playing. memory checks are reused within each frame, and remote emotes outside your view skip their animated copies until you look back. music still works behind you.

limitations

some animations can look stepped even at high FPS, music doesn't get muffled by walls, and the dancing model doesn't change the server's hitbox. the DLL also depends on a supported engine build. another mod replacing the same pilot or titan models can conflict with it.

more info

these pages explain the setup, the engine limitations behind the design, and what's currently supported:

• compatibility and test coverage
• how it works, and why
• titan retargeting
• asset tools and credits
• building it and testing changes
• hosting a relay
• fixing common issues
• what the room key does and doesn't protect

was ai used

i've used codex to get rid of the time consuming parts, such as taking the already built emotes and wheel from my partypack mod i was making, and putting them inside the standalone version; i've also used it to build the mixer.

credits and code

mod and integration by Ceaika. the animation pipeline uses FortnitePorting, UEFormat, SFM's studiomdl and mdlshit, with RePak for the wheel assets. tools and credits explains what each one does. development and debugging were AI assisted with OpenAI Codex. original code is MIT licensed, copyright Ceaika. the imported game models, animations and music are separate assets; the MIT license doesn't make those ours. see third party notes.