Modding for newbe

[Rost]

hello, fellow drivers.

Tell me guys how can I import my own tracks and cars in LFS.

Is there some kind of editor?

[the_angry_angel]

I'm afraid you cant at the moment. Theres no way to import or edit existing cars (other than mecanik) or tracks.

[XCNuse]

i still dont get why SO So SOOoooo many people think that LFS is modable.. i mean common people have you really seen any pictures that are 'out of the ordinary'?

[TagForce]

i still dont get why SO So SOOoooo many people think that LFS is modable.. i mean common people have you really seen any pictures that are 'out of the ordinary'?

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=58

EDIT: In all seriousness... I don't get why LFS would not be modable for the newbie... We know it isn't, but it's not mentioned anywhere a newbie would look (like in bold huge letters on the splash screen). Every game these days is modable, and LFS is the exception, not the general rule.

[keiran]

As I've said before but I'll say it again :razz: I don't want LFS to be moddable. rFactor is such a mess and not fun. If somethings slightly different from the server say bye bye and then you've got to figure out whats wrong :scratchch I enjoy LFS because I can un zip it, unlock it and then off I go onto a server no downloads needed and no frustrated gamer searching for patches etc.

Keiran

[Goresh]

Hmmm, no one forces anyone to download mods, its entirely up to the individual. And one only has to wait afew days after a mods release to know if its worth it or not. This idea that modding will ruin LFS is far from the truth, it will continue its popularity for years, long after development is done. And thats where one must see the current situation with LFS. Its far from a finished product and to mod it now would be pointless, specifics could change drastically, rendering mods useless. That very thing is plagueing RFactor now. Tracks that have been converted are now not working correctly, if at all, since the latest patch.
I support modding 100%, and hope to mod LFS someday, but until LFS is complete, I'm happy to race what we have now.

[ButterTyres]

True no one forces you, (i am FOR modding btw) - but games like UT2004 - if you havent played it for a few weeks, you find you cant connect to ANY server without having to download lots of new tweaks... quite frustrating if you just want a quick game...

[XCNuse]

yep.. as buttertyres (lol sorry thats just a funny name :D ) said, its not whether you want to or not.. sometimes your forced to if you really want to play online.. and that kinda ruins everything all around

[Goresh]

I think there is some confusion here, when I say modding I mean adding different cars and tracks. Not editing whats currently available. If you tried to join a race that was running, lets say for example a mod based on the DTM series or a race at Montreal, and you had neither, ofcourse you'll not be able to join. How you'd get mismatch errors any other way is beyond me.
Do you guys honestly think games such as GPL, NASCAR HEAT, F1C, to name afew, would still have the followings they do without modding? Modding is not evil, it doesn't destroy a game, it adds more content that you'll never get otherwise.

[keiran]

What I'm getting at is no one would play with standard LFS stuff. Most of the people would be playing mods. For me rFactor is as frustrating as untangling 4 N64 controlers at school :razz: I've modded GP4 and was part of the BTCC mod team but that was a single player game.
I've never played a multiplayer game modded which doesn't make me so frustrated that I just give up. You can't say rFactor isn't a mess because it is. One little line in your files different from the server and you can't play. I know its for cheating but the problem is so far no game to my knowledge has managed to pull off modding.
I don't want to find myself booting LFS after a week of not playing it and finding that I have to download a 50-???mb file just so I can find some humans to race.
This is just my view and I think someone said that Scawen was keeping an eye on the modding scene so hopefully if it ever comes to stage that it can be modded then they can implement it better than any game so far to make is user friendly.
The reason I gave up rFactor is when I pay for a game I excpect to just go and play it not to go try find the right track/car that the server is using.

Keiran

[Goresh]

Well you keep referring to Rfactor, which I can agree is a total mess. I myself tried it and wasn't impressed. But one bad example of modding shouldn't out weigh the others that have proved to be very successful. You also say most will be playing mods. That should be another indication the mods worth downloading:) But "most" is a far cry from all.
There has been several mods built for F1C that shine brighter than the game itself, mod groups that take great pride in offerring an accurate and highly detail work that betters the original game. Could one see this as a bad thing, because those true F1 fans out there won't have anyone to race? Everyone will abandon the F1 cars? Hardly the case imho.
Its a shame you've had such a bad time with mods, but please don't compare the possibilities to RFactor. Its a joke, plain and simple, but I also have faith that in time you'll see some amazing mods released.
If we see in the future LFS wasn't moddable, that would be a real shame imo. But in the same breath I'd still be happy, LFS has far exceded any sim to date.

[AndroidXP]

It really doesn't make any sense to discuss the modability of LFS now. The earliest we MAY see mods coming out for LFS is after the S3 release, which we probably won't get before 2007, maybe 2008 (if the devs stay sane and everything goes the same pace as now - working 48 hours a day isn't good for health, you know ;))

Then, AFTER the game is finished and we won't see any major updates and additions, THEN modding does make sense to keep the game alive. And if I as a dev still had the time and compassion to do it, I'd make damn sure to quality check every mod, so only serious mods get released to the public. I'd hate to see a gazillion of "LOL GTi with 5000hp" mods.

In conclusion: as soon as the development process stops, (easy) modding makes sense and keeps the game alive for many many years, as seen in countless other games. Before that: stop wasting your time begging for official modability.

[Goresh]

Don't recall begging, don't recall even asking for it to be possible. Its never a waste of time to openly discuss what one hopes in time will come. To me it makes more sense to state what I'd like to add to LFS rather then list what I want the devs to add.
But your right its very premature in LFS development to expect anything in the way of modding. So I too will give it a rest.

[keiran]

AndroidXP, We are only discussing the situation and I don't see when it's to early. If we talk about things like this openly then chances are someone might have an idea like how to keep LFS modding under control if and when it happens.
I wouldn't mind LFS being moddable only if it's done in a user friendly way that we don't have to troll through loads of the same track trying to find the best one or the one the server uses.
When I was talking to JustinZ one day a while back on MSN he stumbled across the idea of having LFS and LFS Moddable. Two seperate games so at least you could go to standard servers where you know there wont be mismatches.

Keiran

[TagForce]

AndroidXP, We are only discussing the situation and I don't see when it's to early. If we talk about things like this openly then chances are someone might have an idea like how to keep LFS modding under control if and when it happens.
I wouldn't mind LFS being moddable only if it's done in a user friendly way that we don't have to troll through loads of the same track trying to find the best one or the one the server uses.
When I was talking to JustinZ one day a while back on MSN he stumbled across the idea of having LFS and LFS Moddable. Two seperate games so at least you could go to standard servers where you know there wont be mismatches.

Keiran

I think this community has everything in it to keep itself regulated. Especially when the devs concern themselves with Quality Checking mods.
But then again, we don't know what the devs have in mind as far as modding is concerned... It might be officially supported, it might not be, it might be dev regulated, it might not be. We'll have to wait and see.

[detail]

I play X-Plane and MSFS for a bit more than a year. Both are opened for modders, and this doesn't hurt the community. Of course, there is no reason to be on edge in terms of performance, there is a compromise between the will of everyone to have it as real as possible on the one hand, and abilities of people on the other.

I think there are two issues with mods:
The first, no specific for flight sims is cheating and unreal designs. In MSFS you can make a flying bus, pig, chair, UFO, whatever, add, say, Airbus A320 dynamics, cfg, and fly normally. If you want, you can set characteristics of an engine to infinite thrust and zero fuel consumption. All that is true for MSFS, but X, at least, eliminates goofy shape problem: the flight and the visual models are the same. Still it is possible to cheat thrust, but for automobiles this can be solved easily.

Piston engines have quite simple and well-studied characteristics, so it is possible to say by an engine's dimensions how would it work. I have an MS Excel file made by a technician, that calculates all the dynamic cycle of an engine. It is impossible to cheat it, there is no "General HP" parameter. Octane number can be increased, but in game it is limitable, say a road car can't use ROAD SUPER tyres, neither nitromethane fuel.

The second problem, existing among flightsim community is the amount of garbage, addons not worth a try. Online repositories are full of aircrafts with MSFS default dynamics (too simple, sharp, rough movements), or with AC with irrelevant data, with horrible panes and so on. The same situation for X-Plane: one AC I downloaded has pylons turning the opposite direction to ailerons! That's stupid, of course.

How is this problem being solved today? Most Russian internet users have either to pay for time (modem) or traffic (LAN, I use one), or to consider downloading it at workplace (one can't download everything). So, if one sees 100MB package with an aircraft (visual, detailed panel, 3d cockpit, realistic sound), or considers bying a payware add-on he would go to a forum and ask if it is worth to do this. This is a spontaneously made reputation mechanism. While online repositories do not give necessary info for evaluation, reviews rate everything between 7/10 and 10/10, the only way is to ask others.

This makes other problems: community insiders have their reputations by which an insider trusts or not trusts the words of another person. For newbies these reputations do not exist, a newbie needs to live a while in a community and build his own reputations of every notable person.

So I suggest making 2 levels of approval: 1) enabled for usage at LFSWorld by the developers, 2) recommended for offline usage by the community. Both estimations would be arbitrary, of course, but this is anyway better than absence of content mods or complete freedom. Then there would be freedom of creating mods (let's say first they would be only cars), and a newbie would need only to download the approved add-ons (manually or via automatic download).

To sum up, there should be
1) a deeper physics of physics to prevent goofy offline mods
2) binary approval for online usage, checksums to verificate
3) an editor like in X-Plane (yes, I'm a bit fascinated by X), of cars, to begin with.