LFS 3 should be open to modding community just like rFactor. U see i own rfactor and there are so many mods such as F1 2005, V8 Supercars 2006, Formula ford and so on + huge amount of race tracks. I bet u would like to spin a Ferrari or Holden racing car or Mercedes or any such cars made by modders in LFS 3. I personnaly think this would help popullarity of the game and boost the sales :eclipseeh
the devs already have stated several times that they might open lfs to modders well after the s3 release
but thats still probably a few years away and if the quality of mods for lfs were the same as it is for rf mods id rather stick with the original content
the crazy number of half-baked badly designed tracks and constantly updating version numbers so online races can sync up, thats what puts me off. Quality control has gone out the window.
1) We already have a ton of tracks that no one hardly ever uses, quite how more tracks will make LFS "better" is beyond me, don't get me wrong though, I would LOVE to see new tracks, but I just can't see that it would make LFS better.
2) What would cars that look similar to real cars add to the sim?, again, we already have a load of cars that are hardly used, the LRF class for example, how would adding more cars make LFS "better", again, I would love to see more cars, but I doubt it would make LFS "better".
I've been playing LFS for several years now and never once needed real cars and tracks to thoroughly enjoy this sim. Having seen hundreds of mods for other games over the years I'm happy not to have the so-called "modding community" diluting LFS with their garbage.
There is something 'cool' about driving your favourite real world car in a sim, but in this case, i would only like to see it in LFS if the devs were the ones to make it.
i just dont get it ... whenever i see someone on the forum talking about car classes everybody loves lrf yet theres never anybody on the servers ... not even the stcc system seems to be a incentive good enough to drive these cars
if i had a cent for every night i browsed the server list searching for an interesting one with at least one driver there and ended up going to a drift server .......
First of all there must be some planning to how it is done, not like in some other title that it is just left open and there are few odd checks.
Last night did spend over 30mins with mismatches in my own mod for example, error message tells that hdv mismatch, however error was not in hdv, but in other file that has been edited by my instructions and files were same, but it was edited at different time No, this is not how it should be done.
So it have to be made so that it works. There are countless ways to implement good system for this, but it requires plan first and then do it.
Moddable does not mean mess and does not mean stupidly unrealistic mods either, when done properly, also it does not mean end of classes. Simply if someone thinks that he must have bit narrow point of view, use imagination and think issue from all aspects
I'm starting to think that I need to create standard answer that I need to paste to these thread
The problem is that if you give free reign to the players themselves you do end up with crap - we should be learning from rFactor rather than dooming LFS to repeat the same mistakes.
The alternative is to force all mods to go through some kind of quality assurance process before allowing them to be released to the public. This would stop all kinds of drivel, but would also require a lot more employees with an active eye in the community. It's generally not that practical a solution (although there's talk now if this happening with console modding), especially for a small company.
Or my idea from the other thread, which also has it's limitations.
With your idea you are bit of tracks there, but still it don't need to be that limited, there are ways to ensure quality of physics without limiting options to one or two.
Graphics, well these are something that we can pretty much ignore, it is not important factor and if someone's model is bit shinier than other's then who cares, mostly graphics are enough good
I give you one tip, setups. We can share them, we can make them rather freely specially for race cars and so on. I'm not telling all details, much better everyone creates own ideas what I'm talking about
But really there is no need for someone to check everything.
Also we can see clearly that we have demo S1 and S2 online modes, in future there is S3 too and think about if there is then Mod mode in addition, those who don't care about modding don't need to even care about it, they can enjoy from S3. Just one example how things are very possible to make so that there are no any of these problems nay sayers try to bring up, when thing is done properly.
Don't presume that Scawen is uncapable to understand problems that may come up with modding and don't presume that it is going to be like rFactor, saying no based on those assumptions is same level as not drinking water because people are drowning to water, imo
Anyway LFS won't be moddable in next 5 or 6 years most likely so we can have around 200 of these discussions before we are even near there
I have forgotten something:
+1 for planned and properly done modding support.
Just thought of a community project designed to 'okay' a mod for use. Feel free to pick holes in it, or dynamite it altogether.
1. Someone makes a mod using released, official, modding tools. In that tool, as well as making the mod, the username of 10 people must be defined (and you should discuss that with those people, as they are the testers and approvers. They should be chosen as either known specialists in a particular type of car, or just because you value their opinion over others).
2. The mod is exported from the tool in 'check mode'. This car/track cannot be used online at this point, and can only be used by the defined accounts. The nominted drivers can then use that mod offline indefinately, and are asked to allow/disallow the mod based on the results, which is an online process, and talks to a master server (where the mod is also registered by the modding tool).
3. Once 80% of the nominated testers approve the mod, it becomes available for download to everyone, and usable online once downloaded.
This would mean that crap mods don't get released, and good mods are automatically kept up to date on an LFS master server. In time it is likely we'll see the best modders teaming up with the best testers so that more and more faults/bugs are ironed out by the time of initial release. The actual mods themselves can be hosted seperately, with perhaps patches to that mod also on the master server for autodownloading (thus saving us from having to find the ellusive link to the 1.0.2.3 version when we've got 1.0.2.2 which doesn't work online as everyone else upgraded last week when the topic was fresh.
I think it would be too easy to get approval, especially for people in big teams or with popular servers. I bet [FM] could get us a dozen more oval tracks very quickly.
I think the only people qualified to approve new tracks are the devs.
Perhaps have the approvers names listed within the mod, so that if something like [FM] approving every oval mod ever came up, it could be challenged and removed from the list of 'accepted' mods until further testing has occured. Perhaps this only needs to be done to make it usable online, and have all mods working offline (where lack of quality and mismatches don't matter).
Edit: Don't get me wrong, I'm not actually in favour of modding (for the reasons Dan states below and that others have already mentoned), but I have a feeling that sooner or later (well, later) LFS will be opened to modding, and just allowing anyone to release their 'work' will destroy LFS just like it's basically destroyed rTractor. No modding is better than modding, but santioned modding is better than unsanctioned modding...
The whole modding thing worries me, after rFactor, all you seem to get a piles and piles of crappy mods and no actual decent racing.
LFS is the polar opposite of that, no mods and all about racing, I just think that all mod would dilute what we have already got, regardless of weather the mods are community sanctioned or not.
:eclipseeh
, yup, the LX4 is totally sublime , trouble is, I mostly have to race it on my own 
No, this is not how it should be done.