Do I need the newest Version for Mods ?

[TBCWolfi]

I was downloading a bunch of Mods from https://mods.factorio.com/ and most of them require factorio 0.13+ but the "normal" version i get from steam is only 0.12xx. do i need to download the experimental releases to play with mods ?

[daniel34]

For mods from the mod portal, yes.
The mod portal was only introduced with the 0.13 release and all the mods there require Factorio 0.13 which is currently an experimental build. You can update to the experimental release on Steam by right-clicking Factorio in the library, then select Properties, go to the Betas tab and choose 'experimental' (the one at the bottom) from the dropdown.

If you prefer to stay with 0.12 until 0.13 is stable you can find mods for it here: Mods for 0.12+