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.