What Sims 2 mods can you not live without? What mods does your game/expansions need just to work right? I'm looking to reinstall the Sims 2, and I want to make sure I don't miss an important mod that my game will need in order to avoid problems in the future.

My list of "must have" mods is so long, it's hard to know where to begin!

Pescado's LotDebugger, and anything of his with "fix" in the name, are some I consider to be the most important. His mods are a great place to start, in general.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s.../topic,7.0.html

My other favorite modders include TwoJeffs (Simbology.com)
http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?board=7.0

Cyjon
http://drupal.cyjon.net/node/42

Paladin
http://simwardrobe.com/

and Boiling Oil
http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/forum-52.html

ACR. Cannot play without it.

Well, I'm a TS2 newbie (really!) so I don't have much say on this, but here's a thread with 15 pages of essential mods/hacks. I got a lot of great information there.

I must say that although I've played only a few days, The Community Time hack is a must-have.

I play with ACR, inTeen, inSim, a bunch of fixes and tweaks like BBQ inside and only eat when full, and stuff like harder bills/lower wages, custom npc careers, and the simlogical school hack for some variety in where my kids are sent.

<looks at hacks and mods folder> I'm not answering that question.

A heap! There are mods I think everyone should use to keep their game working properly. Those have been listed by Darby. Anything with critical by Pescado.
I also have the bat box (Pescado's LotDebugger) The simblender (by twojeff's at simbiology) and the Stay all shrub (At Simlogical) at every house.

Next come annoyance fixers. What annoys one person doesn't bother someone else so I don't think any should just be installed without reason. A lot of people find the baby fix essential, while I don't have it. What I find essential is the hack that stops sims waking up to weather. That was driving me batty.

Lastly come mods to make the game play how you like to play. I'm more interested in mods that make certain forgotten area of game play more realistic. For me this includes being able to take toddlers to community lots, the Simlogical school mod, a mod that doubles sim ages with a mod to make gaining skills slower, with harder grades, but a summer holiday. LTW variety, the mod to make career's realistic with uni needed for things such as becoming a DR. I'm probably in the minority when I say ACR holds little interest for me as I don't care about autonomous relationships. My poor sims marry who I tell them too and only get woohoo to procreate/gain aspiration points. I love playing legacy style and play mostly to see genetics mix, but no unauthorized babeez-thank you! No 20 K handouts as I like poor sims they are more interesting. I've messed around with a hospital mod, but that had a jump bug and now I'm messing with uni in the main hood. I also have the simlogical prison mod and that comes with a token to keep sims from wandering community lots. yeah if you’re in prison you better stay there! It can also be used on sick sims to help stop things like the flu spreading. Oh and while not actually a mod I can't do without my baby items. I have a huge folder full of gender linked baby clothes and a large range of toddler toys for every skill.

I love the Sim Blender by TwoJeffs. I have one on nearly every lot. I'd say it's a must-have hack.

ACR 2.0

Triplets and Quads hack-you never know what you'll get when a baby is born-guaranteed.

Insiminator and Simblender-yes, I do use both. They're both essential, and while they might overlap, one has the features that the other doesn't.

Christianlov's "Visitor Manager"-which was available only at his site, (don't know if it's closed yet, though) It makes it so much easier to have people stop at the house and actually come inside.

TJ's "Visitor Controller"-absolutely, positively must have this! It keeps the NPC's, Townies, and anyone else you don't want on your lot from ever showing up.

Of course all the annoyance fixing hacks, most of which are from MATY's director cut.
The Batbox is on every lot.

BoilingOil's very useful and necessary "No Sim Loaded" and "No Trash Memories" which make the accumulation of memories a distant one. Keeps the game clean.

Those are the ones I never go without. Of course I have over 500 files in my 'hack' file, and it's taken quite a time to get it work properly.

But in case you do want to cut down the conflicts that can and will arise, get the HCDU by Paladin-which is the one way to make sure they do work together: http://www.simwardrobe.com/

I had 'No Sim Loaded' until someone told me it did something to their game so I took it out. have you had any problems with it?

I use the bat box to get rid of trash memories.

No Sim Loaded has not caused my game any problems, that I know of.

Must-haves? Hmm...so many...

* Insimenator
* Chris Hatch's Visit Other Sims
* Ja-Viera's No plumbobs
* Community Time!
* Pretty much everything by Christianlov, especially the All-in-one NPC
* Pecado's Business Runs You, Macrotastics, and Customer Selector. Oh and Autonomy Control made it so I could get rid of a lot of other no-autonomy mods.

My mods folder: 1,736 Files, 196 Folders

So yeah, I've got a LOT of mods. The best thing about being a TS2 simmer now is that the game is no longer being updated, so no need to update mods every six months.

For me, I cannot play without ACR, InTeen, and Trips&Quads no matter how many unauthorised babies it tends to give me (although I do use the birth control option in ACR when I decide a family's had enough children or I need to space them out). Also the Sim Blender.

Cyjon's Townie Job Fix (enables random townies to get EP and custom careers) and Townie Apartment Residents (no -- to me -- needless AL sims bloating my character files).

Various mods and fixes by Pescado (batbox, stuck object remover).

Those are what I'd class as 'essential', but really, have a look at all the mods by Pescado/on MATY, Simbology, Cyjon, BoilingOil, Squinge/InSim, Simlogical, Simwardrobe, and also some mods available here on MTS. If I listed every mod I had, we'd be here for ages.

I've had no problems with "No Sim Loaded", at all.

I forgot all about Ja's "No Plumbobs" mod, along with Psychosim's additional mod of "No Plumbobs in neighborhood" mods.

Funny how you get so used to having so many "extra" features that you forget that you had to add them in to make it look better!

I've never been able to get the "visit other sims" mod to work properly in my game-probably my fault. It just confuses me to death. The Community Time Project doesn't seem to work well with a game that includes BV. Something in that EP broke the mod, I think.

As for file numbers, Liv has me beat-I've only got 549 files in my hacks/mods folder!

Oh, I forgot one I recently downloaded that I adore - it's a mod that allows you to click on other sims and age them up. If you're in a Uni subhood and call over a teen, they'll age into a YA, so you can have your teen pals at college without having to play them. You can also graduate/drop out/expel other students. I like to do that to a few sims each semester so that the same dormies aren't always hanging around. It also gives you the option to age up elders, making them die of old age. So now my townies can age up with my playables. :D

There's an in-game cheat that does that anyway.

The same could be said for most of the options in Simblender and Insim. Much like those, I downloaded it for its ease of use. All I have to do is click on a sim and the option's there. No mucking around with the cheat panel!

Do you remember where you got that?

I've been eyeing the Sim Blender. I've read so much about it, but am reluctant to try it just because I do have a number of mods, and am a little concerned that it would clash with at least one of them. Does anyone know of any mods or modded objects (those can be the worst, because they can be harmless enough for years, and you might not think anything of them because they just sit in the background until BLAM ... crash time) that conflict with this? I have read of a couple, but fortunately, don't have those. I suppose someone can't scold me for not Googling enough and please point me to a list? Also, I read that you can actually have both Insim AND Sim Blender in the game. Back when I checked out this mod, it was missing a couple of features that Insim had, but that might have changed. It's been a couple of years.

It's just that like others, I have so many mods and hacks loaded (including a whole lot of modded objects), and after years of playing many of them, while I know they place nicely with InSim, I don't know if they will do the same with the Blender. Part of downloading so many of them, I suppose, though I don't have quite as many as some, I guess (about 225 or so).

Anyway, a sample of the ones I use:

Christianlov's clothing rack. Hey, I don't mind paying for the clothes. But I guess I get a bit lazy about running to the clothing store.
The Insim (at present), if only for the maxmotives feature. Not too fond of my Sims going into the red constantly.
No regens. Oh, yes, no regens. ALL of them. I can't pick just one.
Smonaff's jogging mod. Great for poor Sims who quickly want to build up their body, or to pass time .... since it's on this site, I'll post the URL ... http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=199203
Numenor's mods, particularly ... oh ... there are so many I use! I do like the one that allows you to place custom items on your store shelves ... http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=137561
Inge's Stay Things shrub. Why SHOULD the place be cleaned out after my Sims move? Let the new occupants have the previous occupants' sofas, tables, etc.!
No Teen Runaway. I just find the runaway bit annoying.
Pescado's money order mod. Great for wealthy benefactors to help out poor Sims, or for these benefactors to be wretched landlords who demand the rent, the rent ... NOW.

For me, its:
InSim
InTeen
Some fixes from MATY
Simblender
EngagementMemoryFix
Gussy Up mod
Nounlinkondelete
marriage-postmortum
nocorruptdeath
etc...

Lizz Love: No Jealously At All

TwoJeffs Mods: Pregnancy for All Genders, Same Sex Marriage, Baby Wants Fix, Have Baby instead of Adopt

And that is about it actually. Reason for that is because most of my sims are lesbians AND I usually have some of them with the Romance, and I do not need to be slapped around a bagillion times -.-"

@ gazania
I don't think I've heard of the Blender clashing with anything. It's not one that really fiddles with the code and makes the game behave differently, more a changer of the settings. Well, you can do that sort of thing with SimPE (though you have to shut the game down, of course) - in fact, I've heard the Blender described as an in-game substitute for SimPE, at least in the sense of being able to alter sim statistics and states. I do believe it's one of the few ways Mac users can do that sort of editing given they can't use SimPE.

Well, I can probably uncheck a couple of mods in the Clean Installer that probably won't be needed if I try the Blender and give it a shot. I suppose I can always just whisk the blender out of my game if need be ... just don't save! And now that it appears that you can actually have both Insim AND the blender, that is a bit better for me. I can just phase out Insim once I know if the Blender works better for me.

Thanks, maxon!

People are far too afraid of mods. I've got well over 900 installed, at the moment, and it's not a problem. Even if you end up with a mod conflict, the worst that's likely to happen is that you have to figure out what's conflicting with what, and remove the culprit(s).

Generally, mods don't cause corruption or "break" the game! They just cause glitches, if they're not the right version for your game, or they conflict with other installed mods. The solution is usually as simple as removing the offender(s).

Of course, there are prudent precautions to be made. One definitely needs to read up enough to understand what they're getting. Most good modders will tell people if there are known conflicts with other mods. A rare few mods may have particular UNinstallation procedures beyond simply removing them from Downloads, and one needs to understand that. Also, backing the game up before adding a bunch of new stuff is basic, as is testing it to make sure it plays nice before making it a permanent part of a mod collection.

But again, mods aren't nearly as scary as people think, and if a mod is causing trouble in someone's game, that doesn't mean there's "corruption". Sometimes a glitch is just a glitch, and if it's due to a mod, it's going to be fixable in the vast majority of cases.

My absolute must-have mods:

Twojeffs: ACR, smart beds, pregnancy for all genders, age duration hack, cumputer fixes

Inge (Simlogical): No social worker patch, Crib sleep night, Sleep later patch

Pescado: All his critical fixes, the no-regan-mods + hugging hack, harder jobs, don´t wave at me, no route fail, no hobby-spam, no 20Khandouts, no adhd

Squinge (Insimenator): Community lots skilling, visiting children and teens stay later

I have BV and I've not had any problems with community time, although I've heard that it is better to take it out when you take sims on vacation. I've not yet taken a sim on vacation, so I've no personal experience to share.

Oh and my numbers include txt/doc files for some of the mods, so perhaps not so many as it seems. But yeah, a lot.