Starting a new thread because the last one on the subject is almost two years old. I ran into another situation today where I found an interesting mod that required another mod. Turns out, that mod required yet another one. So I gave up rather than tumbling down that rabbit hole. Has there been any progress on implementing dependency management, or is that not an active project? Even better would be a component dependency system, with mod packs broken down into tires, engines, skins, etc. So, for example, if you wanted Joe Beam's Creepy Crawler Hopper, which used tires from Biff Goodpoor's Mega Tire Pack and a V8 from Shelby Carrol's Big Blocks, the dependency system would only download the necessary components, not the whole mod pack. I know this would require a major overhaul of the mod system, but it might be a worthwhile long-term project. Some mods are huge, and disk space is finite.
I think it should be up to the modders not to make any dependencies in their mods apart from wheel packs and similar stuff, or mods from the same author. And it would be impossible to implement considering how all over the place most mods are with file structures. But there is definitely an issue, I've seen a config mod with over 50 dependencies and 2 of them were deleted mods. I think that it's rather the modder's fault if they make something like this.
I know the steam workshop has this and it’s a life changer. This wouldn’t be very difficult. You would just list the mods needed for said mod to work and a little pop up menu comes up with the option to download. We need this.
That last part hits the nail on the head. Sometimes you run across an old mod that's no longer maintained, and includes broken dependencies, but you still really want that mod. A component management system would ensure that any item used by a current mod stays in the repo. It's like Linux. Most programs use multiple packages. When you run Apt (or another package manager), it finds the required dependencies and prompts you to install them. When you remove a program, it prompts you to remove packages that are no longer used by any program on your machine.
The staff outlines why Steam Workshop support won't be coming to BeamNG here: https://wiki.beamng.com/BeamNG_FAQ#Is_Steam_Workshop_support_planned.3F
