Hiya! I suppose this is rather similar to the sticky'd Essential Mods thread, but I'll do it anyways.

Last night I was watching my fave youtuber/streamer Pleasant Sims and she did a stream where she wanted to play totally vanilla game (+ the new story progression mod). I only watched a few minutes before falling asleep but I know she commented on how she'd have to do things 'the hard way' without mods. And one thing I noticed when she got Gabriel Green and Chastity Gere married is because she had Chastity initiate it they got her surname. When normally there's a mod for that.

It got me thinking if I could ever play fully vanilla again, or if I'd find that impossible. I'd want to keep a bunch of the maty mods like the no regens and fixes, so that's already not vanilla. Idk if I could live without sim blender, maybe. As nice as all my default replacements are I don't mind the vanilla sims all that much so I think I could do that. I probably don't need any build/buy stuff.

But then I wondered how many of the mods I have do I actually need? What could I get rid of? First thing to go was "Watch Kids" because I just always default to hiring a nanny, I've used that mod like one time. Then I got rid of 8 other random mods. Looking for others I can toss.

What are some mods you have in your game that you absolutely completely need and the idea of playing without scares you? That's my question. :P

Funny you ask this, I set up a brand new hood on my laptop literally yesterday specifically for trying out Story Progression myself. My essentials mod list was about... 162 mods. Plus ACR and traits. I've got all of Cyjon's Ghost hack, iCad's autonomy tweaks, more slots, a few features from Midge (guinea pig disease, study all skills from books autonomously, Sims 1 burglar music) and some party wants fixes, genetics equalisers and townie bodyshape/facial hair diversity, no censor blur, no red pause border, same sex marriage, widescreen fixes, and of course, essentials from MATY. But even then I had to stop and quit and add in noagediscrimination when my founder married her elderly love interest and I remembered the elder jobs suck.
ETA: Oh, and the clothing tool. I am not having a toddler in a beanie and a formal gown!

I'm back, I didn't get rid of as many as I hoped to. I'm sure if I was to just play without mods I wouldn't even know what half of what I have does or miss them. But because I was looking at them and reading them then I was like "oh no I need that!"

I can't imagine my game without:
• ACR
• Sim Blender
• Clothing Tool
• FSS Lot Debugger
• Cyjon's Pizza Box (I feel like I need Cyjon's Hacks, too)
• WatchKidsEnabled (I love having relatives, or family friends watching the kids, as opposed to the psychotic nannies)
• Visitor Controller
• DaySetter
• Default Eyes & Skins (I much prefer them over the standard, but I don't mind OG Maxis too much (I played that way for years))
• Certain Pescado Hacks
• Memory Grammar Fixes (and the memory fixes I have in general)
• Monique's Hacked Computer
• Default Replacement for the Cornrow Hair, or whatever it's called... I hate the Maxis texture for it... I also hate that Nightlife hair with the big, sticky up fringe... I'm fine with the other hairs, honestly
• Terrain Defaults (and tree defaults)
• Weekly Arsonist (sounds weird, but I'm too used to regular visits from Amin Bear now...)
• More Dangerous Fire
• Real Sickness

Only ones I can think of at the moment. May think of more later.

I looked through my mods folder (of more than 300 files) and other than the normal corruption-fixing ones, there weren't any that I thought that I really NEEDED. I could play without them. But I surely wouldn't play as long and would find it aggravating.

So I sorted my mods by date order and looked at what were the oldest mods I had. It's not really a good test since some would have had to be updated as the EPs came out but the two oldest mods (both from 2004) are bringrealfriends and NoKickTrashCan. From 2005 I have TeleporterShrubPlus, StayThingsShrub, hugginghack, homeworksometimesfasterfun_V2. and CBOY_EatMoreTalkLess, From 2006 - marriagepostmortum, noshockforanyone, FeedBaby, C7_Weather, ijNoDripSinksPatch, doorbell-quieter, NoPetCodeSpam, and Smonoff_GhostHack.

Do I NEED any of them? No. But for convenience and to reduce/eliminate things I found aggravating I wouldn't enjoy playing very long without them. (coffeecuphack is 2007 but it must be an updated version because that was one of the first things I remember finding the most aggravating.)

And while not mods but not being "vanilla" either, I would definitely not play much at all if I were limited to vanilla skins, eyes, makeup, hair, clothes or bodyshapes.

Basegame (patched) I sometimes play vanilla, but once you get a few EPs, the annoyances start... I couldn't play just basegame and M&G without modding out all of the 'salute' (shield eyes from sun) and stopping to smell the flowers. I don't mind most of the annoyances like fighting and blocking each other in corridors, and ugly Maxis clothing makes me laugh so I keep it (apart from the YELLOW papergirl). Seasons gets annoying fast when they all have it's raining! in their queue. What I would miss most is the lighting and sky mods I think.

I've gt so many Mods and almost all of them are needed to play though one thing I coule never play without is having career rewards and aspirtation rewards unlocked in buy mode.I'm not really sure exactly how many Mods I have though custom foods and the breakfast a midnight are critical in my game.

One that I never think about until I start a new mods folder and go CRAZY because the mod isn't there -- pottyfixes. It stops toddlers from getting distracted while on the potty and climbing off as soon as they get on. AGH that makes potty training and using the potty impossible.

I think it is a Simbology mod, unfortunately. I always have to remind myself how to find the simbology archive to find it when I need to install it.

My default replacement skins, eyes and eyebrows
Insimenator
Freezer clock
OMSPs (the black one in SL's set and a 5 degree one - the others I can manage without unless I'm doing a photoshoot with more than two sims)
My weather mods (they keep the weather and temperature constant - at least until I've gotten everything else in my game under control)

There are probably a lot of mods I'd go slowly insane without, but without those, I go QUICKLY insane. As in, I can't even manage one sitting without them.

My mods folder is nearly 200 MB, but there's some stuff in there that I just keep there so I won't accidentally move it out.

I played pure vanilla for many years, until I was finally persuaded to at least add the essential mods. The first non-essential mod I added was no 20k handouts: I could do without it, but it saves a lot of time. Then I added a bunch of Pescado's anti-stupidity mods, to stop Sims endlessly feeding stuffed babies, lecturing or yelling at newborns who fill their diaper, bathing clean toddlers, or not washing their hands after using the bathroom (the very sloppy ones still don't, but that's realistic). I could do without all of those; I would just get annoyed a lot.

The mods I would really hate to do without now are:

Inteen (for the independent teen stage)
Stopinator
SimBlender (for setting ages, careers and career levels)
No inheritance (I like to base life insurance on income and bequests on household funds; Maxis inheritance is way too much and not being wealth-based is ridiculous)
Cyjon's Loan Jar (for poverty hood start-ups, and for "out-of-nowhere" life insurance payouts)
Cyjon's Shorter Semesters
Christianlov's Wallet Controller (because it lets Sims send money to a Sim they don't know, either for paying taxes or for sending bequests to granny's friends they've never met)
One that makes thunderstorms a lot quieter
Inge's Flexischool

Except for the thunderstorms, these make a big difference to my play style. The vanilla game is very modern middle-class; these mods allow for a more realistic and more working-class or starting-from-scratch type of hood.

I will go insane for sure without ijNoDripSinksPatch.

I played the sims 2 vanilla for a very long time as well. Since I've only discovered that there are essential/mods fixes when I downloaded the game a month ago I would say that I could not live without the lot debugger or even the stuck object remover (I've had to nuke several stuck/glitched objects for some reason).

I can play basegame only with a minimal amount of mods, I use many more mods playing UC (much like what simsample described, though I have different pet peeves). I tried to think which mod it is that I always miss first when I'm playing a fresh, new setup and I think it's the cameramod. Without the cameramod I can't get to the edges of my neighbourhood and placing things in neighbourhood view is just too frustrating, so I suppose that's a mod I just wouldn't play without. And I have learned the hard way that I will want mods like 'nounlinkondelete' in the end, though they don't start feeling essential until I've got at least two neighbourhoods I'm really attached to.

I have over 2,400+ mods in my mods folder...

But I can't play without Community Lot Time so this clashes with this new SP mod, who I would like for boring pre-mades in my Ubber hood but I need CLT first.
I also can't play without the Simlogical Institution Sign.
Season and day setter
Sim blender
Sim manipulator
Visitor Controller
Moniques computer
Closet Gussy Up

As to CC, default eyes.

There are so many of them that I can't list them all, because they've been in my game forever.
But:
"Nowhatsthis" tops the list
Followed by
Visitor Controller
Visitor Manager
ACR 2.0
Insimenator
SimBlender,
To speak of a few of the mods I use.

Would you really need it with the SP mod though? It's got its own lot sync function that works like vacation time, so if your Sim goes out to a community lot and then heads home about 5pm, the home lot will be at 6pm when they return.
ETA: I suppose it might not be ideal if you want to play that time for the Sims back at the home lot though, but as you said you need it for boring premades, their time progressing off screen actually sounds like an improvement! XD

@joandsarah77 -Your Mod count sounds a lot like mine only mine is just a little worse and I've got way too many I couldn't even begin to play without in UC because they replace the function of some cheats.

But what about the sims left at home? What have they been doing all that time? MUST.CONTROL.THEM.ALL. I would only want boring sims like the Oldies to do whatever. Plus I think it clashes with a couple more mods that I use.
For me SP would be something fun to try in a separate folder based around playing one family legacy style, but not for 'real' play.



Yes, it's modded within an inch of its life.

This is why I won't be getting the story progression. For whatever reason it's totally fine in 3 and 4 but just the complete feel of 2 makes me want to micromanage EVERYTHING so I don't want my sims doing things without me in 2.


Christianlov's Last Name Copier, Mog's Simply Leftovers, and Smonaff's Period Hack are three other mods I'd put in the NEEEEED category. Period Hack is probably one of the first mods I ever downloaded. And being able to put leftovers away as single plates is an absolute game changer.

I have mainly the same essential mods as others have listed here already (ACR, Simblender etc.) and i will add one more to the list: the nobabyharassment mod. I played with the Story progression mod without any other mods in in the Curious household and the way they kept ALL lining up for the alien baby the second i didn't direct them to do anything else was super annoying.

The auto save mod that looks like an hour glass, I don't remember who its by. That's another I thought of last night.
I'm always paranoid about crashes although seemingly since cutting my downloads folder in half and switching to maxis match my likelihood of crashing has gone from like 2 hours to about 6-8 (which by that point I should probably be taking a break anyways)
But I still put one in every single house and set it to prompt me every 12 sim hours, so I save twice per round since I play in 1-day rounds.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing right now, no way is it going in my regular game! I dread to think what it would do to my uberhood! I do kinda want just the BV time syncing though. My households usually go out on family trips anyway, if they go out alone it's because everyone else is at work/school. Might have to see if I can have that without the rest of SP.

Like FranH, "Nowhatsthis" tops the list. It was the first hack to go into my game back in the days (2004).
Then ACR because playing without it is like watching an action movie with no action.
The Lot sync timer to keep my households in sync.
Business run you.
SimBlender and Simmanipulator.

@Essa -I fully agree on ACR for different reasons like wanting to stop them from being able to cheat and do crazy things like get too inimiate in public on the wrong community lots and to tune chances of getting pregnant.
I just found out adding another multi-part Mod didn't even touch my game's loading speed and I still have to be ready when I load my game or it's sitting there waiting for me to load a town.

I've played completely vanilla, and it was actually fine. I think it's the later EPs that add the really annoying stuff though. I only got to I think Nightlife in my vanilla setup and then I installed UC and AGS at the time didn't work with UC. Whereas I can't play Sims 3 or 4 vanilla. And TBH every time I try to play them I spend so long trying to set up mods it's not worth it any more.

But - I just lost everything because I thought I had backups and it turns out the backups I have are like 3-4 years old so I kind of don't want them also I backed up my DL folders and hoods separately and lost all the DL folders bar two, so I am contemplating just starting from scratch. To be honest, I had way too many hoods and it was overwhelming. A fresh start feels really freeing.

All the hordes of townies that get added with AL in particular are silly - I remembered why I abandoned one particular hood, I created 100 ish sims for it, but it has 450 character files - the rest are mostly AL townies. I'm contemplating keeping it because that particular hood is SO old - older than my eldest son so probably 13 years or so. But I need to figure out who the townies are and what they are doing in my town. I think I will add a city portion to one of the subhoods, and I can pretend they live there. Then just ban them from visiting the supposedly remote parts.

So no regen, empty templates and fewer NPCs for sure. And probably some of the annoyance blocking mods from later EPs. Like the hobby people that march into your house at 3am because you had a dream, er, no.

Aging mods I get twitchy without. I can play without them, I just have to adjust my playstyle, but I don't like to.

Townie name mods. I am not a fan of the Maxis names and I like seeing what combinations of my own names come up.

Some kind of risky pregnancy or ACR is a must for me. I don't like having to plan everything.

Visitor controller - I LOVE being able to program different community lots to only allow certain aspirations, hobbies, careers, etc - I think it makes it really interesting and diversifies my lots. It adds a lot to my gameplay so I wouldn't want to play without it.

Billing and rent mods that adjust these things. It doesn't make sense for my sims to move into an apartment that costs them a ton of money with a giant deposit, when there is a cheaper empty lot they can build a shack on, but I don't want loads of shacks in my hood, I like to build functional apartments. So I have mods which makes the rent much much cheaper, so that it makes logical sense.

Batbox, sim blender, teleporter shrub, the college phonebook one (Semester tester?). Gussy up as well I really missed. Cos I need that control OMSPs yep, clutter and item placement is very fun.

The one which changes which careers require uni, my own edit. The maxis careers requiring uni are stupid and I want my sim doctors educated. Oh and Cyjon's semester changes because uni drags on SO LONG otherwise. It's the total opposite of vanilla ageing 0_o