Voice Chat

Turn on positional, in-world voice chat — one dashboard toggle plus one open UDP port.

Beacon manages Simple Voice Chat for you: one toggle installs the server mod, folds the matching client mod into every player's install, and writes the server config. Players in the Beacon launcher get voice automatically; everyone else gets a one-click .mrpack and a download.

Two things have to be true

Voice needs the server mod running and a UDP port open. Beacon owns the first; you open the second once with beacon firewall. That's the whole setup.

Requirements

A non-vanilla server loader. Paper, Purpur, Folia, Fabric, Quilt, Forge, and NeoForge all have a mod/plugin surface; vanilla does not, so the toggle is disabled there.
An explicit Minecraft version (the MC_VERSION your server pins).
Inbound UDP for the voice port — 24454/udp by default, set by MC_VOICE_HOST_PORT. Beacon maps this Docker port from first boot, but it does not change your host or cloud firewall for you.

Open the voice port

Voice runs over a separate UDP port from the TCP game port, so opening the game port is not enough. The CLI prints and applies the right rules:

beacon firewall              # show the plan (game + voice, and dashboard if applicable)
beacon firewall --apply --yes  # allow SSH first, then apply via ufw

If your host is on a cloud provider, add the same 24454/udp inbound rule in its security group / firewall console too — both layers must allow it. On a home connection, forward 24454/udp on the router to the host.

The #1 voice problem is a closed UDP port

If a player can join the server but can't hear anyone, voice traffic is being dropped — almost always a 24454/udp rule missing on the cloud firewall or router. The game working tells you nothing about voice; they're different ports and protocols.

You can open the port before or after enabling voice — it's a harmless closed port until the server mod is running.

Enable voice

Open the dashboard and go to Server → Voice:

beacon admin

Flip the toggle

Turn on Proximity voice and confirm. You can warn online players and add a short countdown message — the same safety options as any server change.

Beacon applies it

Beacon edits your active loadout to add Simple Voice Chat, takes the usual world snapshot, and recreates the server so the mod loads. It writes voicechat-server.properties (and merges — Beacon owns the network keys, then preserves anything else unless you manage it from the dashboard). You're redirected to the operation view to watch it land.

Players get it automatically

The same change adds the client mod to your players' install. One-click Play in the launcher and the .mrpack download both install it; other launchers get a download in the install guide.

Check it landed

Hit Run check on the voice card. Beacon inspects the running server — plugin loaded, UDP port published, config written, voice socket bound — and shows exactly what address players' clients dial. It can't reach through your firewall or router from inside the host, so that one stays a manual confirm (below), but everything on the server side gets a green/red answer instead of a guess.

Configure voice

The voice card also exposes the Simple Voice Chat settings most servers tune: normal and whisper distance, broadcast range, group chats, recording, spectator behavior, ping replies, and whether players without the client mod should be kicked. Saving while voice is running schedules the same backup-gated recreate so the plugin rereads voicechat-server.properties.

Beacon keeps port, bind_address, and voice_host managed from your beacon networking config. Don't hand-edit those unless you're diagnosing a one-off network problem — the dashboard will reconcile them on the next recreate.

Groups can still be denied by permissions

Simple Voice Chat grants voicechat.groups to everyone by default. If non-op players can't join even open groups, LuckPerms or another permission manager is probably overriding that default. Grant voicechat.groups to the default group, then have the player rejoin.

How players get voice

Voice is part of your server's client pack, so every play path already carries it — there's nothing extra to send players.

One-click Play installs the voice mod with the rest of the pack and launches straight in. Nothing for the player to configure.

The install guide (Set up your client, or the public /i/<id> link) offers a one-click .mrpack for Modrinth App / Prism, plus a direct download of the Simple Voice Chat jar for a manual mods/ drop-in.

Paper servers serve a Fabric client

Simple Voice Chat runs as a plugin on Paper but a mod on the client. So a Paper server hands players a Fabric pack containing the voice mod — Beacon sets that up automatically. Players on Fabric/Quilt/Forge/NeoForge servers just get the voice mod added to the loader they already run.

First launch (one time per player)

Installing the mod isn't quite enough — Simple Voice Chat needs a quick per-player setup the first time, and skipping it is the most common reason a group is "all connected but nobody can hear anyone":

Press V to open the voice menu.
Pick a microphone and speaker (the defaults are often wrong).
Choose Push-to-talk (hold a key to speak) or Voice activation.

This is per-player and client-side — the server can't set it for them. Once it's done, players press their talk key and hear each other by proximity. Proximity falloff, groups, and audio devices stay adjustable per-player in the same menu.

Disable voice

Toggle Proximity voice off and confirm. Beacon removes the server mod, drops the client mod from the pack, and recreates the server. The UDP port stays mapped (harmless) so re-enabling later needs no firewall change.

Troubleshooting

Start with Run check on the voice card — it pinpoints every server-side cause below. The remaining ones are client- or network-side and are called out as manual confirms.

Symptom	Likely cause
Can join, but nobody hears anyone	`24454/udp` closed on the cloud firewall or router — or players skipped the first-launch audio setup (mic/speaker + activation)
Mic icon is red / crossed out in-game	The client can't reach the voice server — the UDP port is blocked, or `voice_host` points at a TCP-only proxy (Cloudflare-proxied DNS, Caddy, Tailscale Serve) that drops UDP
"Voice chat unavailable" in-game	Player is missing the client mod, or on the wrong Minecraft version
Non-op players can't join groups	A permission manager is denying `voicechat.groups` even though Simple Voice Chat grants it to everyone by default
Run check flags a wrong dialed port	A custom `MC_VOICE_HOST_PORT` — re-apply voice so Beacon writes a port-only `voice_host` that corrects the announced port
Toggle is disabled	Server is on the vanilla loader — switch to Paper or a mod loader first
"No Simple Voice Chat build for…"	Simple Voice Chat hasn't shipped for your Minecraft version yet — pin a supported version

See Ports & Access for the full firewall walkthrough.

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