Since modded vehicles can't use brand names and go for legally-different names, it makes it harder to search for various vehicles. Is there anything that can be done regarding searching (such as through adding community tags) to make things easier?

For example, a tag for all vehicles that are based on BMWs, a tag for Nissans, etc. Just, I don't know, something.

Many might agree on fictional names (such as Bimmy for BMW), but the problem is not everyone will give a brand the same fictionalized name. I've seen like 10 different stand-ins for Toyota, for example (Toytota, Toy Yoda, Yotota, etc.). It makes searching difficult. Other times people don't put in a brand name at all for the mod and only a model.

I was thinking about that too. Maybe it would be a good idea for all cars of a given brand to have the same name, e.g. all BMWs are BWM, TOYOTA are TOYTOTA, etc.

While I generally agree with the idea, it would probably also help to have stand-in logos for those as well, since I think otherwise everyone goes for their own ideas - for the Laurent Coil Cup, I made Laurent as an anagram from Renault, and made a logo fitting the rhombus based on the L and T in LaurenT, but that's just one of many possibilities.

If its really that important for you guys, just create a thread where mod creators can

add their mods and it will be added and updated to the first post sorted by brands. P V L

It's been a while so I can't remember exactly, but mod makers have a field for which car the mod was inspired by - if that field could be added to the fields that are searched for matching text, then searching "toyota" would match all the yototas, toy yodas and toytotas

Quote from Racon :

It's been a while so I can't remember exactly, but mod makers have a field for...

Not sure, if this is a good idea. Some manufacturers are not happy about mods, even if it is a non-profit fan work and a free advertisement for them. Search using registered brands might cause more trouble than benefit.

A better tag could be to sort cars in order of Country of Origin, would make finding Audi's or BMW's easier for example

Quote from stuchlo :

Not sure, if this is a good idea. Some manufacturers are not happy about mods...

Maybe, I'm not a lawyer, but you can already go to a yotota mod page and find the word toyota. I'm not sure there's any practical difference.

Quote from stuchlo :

Not sure, if this is a good idea. Some manufacturers are not happy about mods...

The only time I've seen manufacturers truly unhappy with mods is Porsche going after GTA5Mods. I can't really recall any other time. I think the only real problem is when people make profits off of it, a lot of games have modders with Patreons and Gumroads and things making money off of licensed content. BeamNG.drive was probably the worst example because while some modders made their own original lore-friendly content, there were a TON of scammers selling mods of licensed vehicles using stolen assets (i.e. Forza).

Anyways, if there's already a field for what your vehicle is inspired by, that would be hella useful.

Quote from mrwallace888 :

The only time I've seen manufacturers truly unhappy with mods is Porsche going...

I also thought that non-profit fan work is not a problem until I heard about some complains. It seems, that some manufacturers are very friendly and may even grant you a license, some just tolerate modding because it is a free advertising and some do not understand non-profit fan projects at all.

The best and easiest way to make that work would be to include the country that the car was ''made'' on, it should be easier to find mods from a brand that you like, just like BlueFlame said.
Could also add tags, like ''drift'' ''race'' 'street'', anything would work.

Yeah since there's a field to say what your car is supposed to replicate, can't we just search using that?

Considering we can get vehicles through the web browser too I wish we could at least search those inspiration fields here on the site and then find cars that way.

People have different "lore names" in mind

It's difficult to gather people and brainstorming about lore names and logo that would be used together, as people tends to have their ideals, even with the same brand, they dont usually make changes that differentiate their model (i.e. M4 G82 that have lots of clone), some of them having the same power and weight figures, only different in how it drives

But making search for brands based on mods description, open the vulnerability being searched by manufacturer, thus Porsche and GTA5 mods case would potentially repeat in LFS here

Quote from ivancsx :

But making search for brands based on mods description, open the vulnerability being searched by manufacturer, thus Porsche and GTA5 mods case would potentially repeat in LFS here

If that's the case, then having the feature on here on the site in the first place would be trouble enough, I don't think whether or not you can actually search it makes literally any difference.

the country selection might just be perfect, no brands to be angered in no way. only problem is getting people to add what country their car is from, maybe they'd select it from a list when posting/updating then it'd show in the mod list.

I think it would be best if we could create our own lists in-game, similar to favorites but for each brand that we like.
OR ability to flag each mod with a keyword so its easier to find it next time. Because i admit you drive one mod, then after some time its impossible to find it, because you dont remember how it was called, although you know the real brand of it.

I wanted to give this a bump, as I still think it'd be a nice addition.

Like I said, if the website page for each addon allows for an "inspired by" entry, there's probably not much of a reason it couldn't be a searchable thing, and/or available as an in-game entry.

If it cannot be implemented on lfs.net due to legal issues, maybe an option is to have a 3rd party webpage or an Excel spreadsheet.

You could list all the mods and the vehicle the mod was based on (or inspired by). As suggested elsewhere in this thread you could have seperate filter for country of origin. I personally would appreciate it if there was a filter for manufactuered year (or decade) for the mod (i.e. 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s etc.)

It could list the following...

SkinID
Mod Name
Short Name
Uploaded by
Class
Published date
Status
Mod Inspired/based on:
Manufactured year/decade:
Maybe even specs like power/weight/drive type etc

Anything else?

I wonder if there is a way to extract most of that of LFS itself?

I'm sure it will be quite useful for a lot of people - a nice project for someone with a bit of free time?

I don't know if it's a legal problem, an "inspired by" entry for each mod already exists that tells you what the car is supposed to be. Making that a searchable thing here on the site and/or making it displayable in-game shouldn't be any less legal than its already-existing appearance here on lfs.net.

If we needed a 3rd party site or a spreadsheet to place mods on, it'd have to be something automated and not done by hand as there's too many mods to keep track of manually.

Did you try using google search like this?

or

(copy & paste it into google)
It seems okayish, some unrelated results but usable.

Mods do (should) already have a note on which vehicle/intellectual property they are based.
See at bottom of a mods page:

Quote :

Intellectual property
This Vehicle Mod is inspired by another vehicle.
(and then name of vehicle)

As others have suggested, I think having personal (unlimited) in-game tags or lists would be a good way to sort vehicles.
Maybe a button can be added in the "Mods" screen, that will lead to a separate screen for the lists/groups of mods.

Quote from Gutholz :

Mods do (should) already have a note on which vehicle/intellectual property they are based.

Exactly my point, the Google search function you mentioned helps a little, but still this section should be searchable in-site, and especially in-game.