I don't mean things that are just necessary to play, like a lot of director's cut, I mean things necessary for your playstyle.

For me my all time, cannot play the game without this mod, is ACR. Because I think the game vanilla is pretty limited in terms of sexual expression. Like you can't have polyamorous sims, or one night stands.

Also the sparklesims keg. Don't ask me why, it's always the first mod I download.

not sure if any of my mods/hacks are necessary for my play style.

about ACR; its main purpose I take to be for making romantic socials autonomous. have not downloaded it.

- Definitely ACR.
- Insimenator
- No Sim Loaded
- Monique Hacked Computer
- Community Time Project
- No 20k Handouts
- Nostrayrespawn, notownieregen, etc...
- Automatic Payment Mod
- 4 Key Door Locking
- Bottomless Bottom

Soo many, but the first two that come on top of my mind are perfect plants and watch tv from everywhere. I'm playing a vanilla Verona atm and it's a pain to get 4 sims watch the tv together.

Squinge's No More Fires. It gives me so much peace of mind when my Sims go to cook a meal or sit by the fireside. I just never, ever want to watch anyone, especially not somebody I love, burn to death.

InTeen
- not so much for teen/YA pregnancy, although that does happen occasionally, but because older teens who don't go to university can get started on their careers
Job Stopinator
- because 20 mayors, or police chiefs, or whatever, in one town makes no sense
No 20k handouts
No inheritance
- I have my own system of inheritance, which takes some working out but is much more realistic, being based partly on household wealth (the money comes out of the estate) and partly on the deceased Sim's pension payments (if the Sim never worked, their heirs don't get an insurance payout)
Monique's Hacked Computer
Cyjon's loan jar
- I use it for pension-based life insurance payments, because familyfunds often doesn't work as I need it to, and for any time I need to give a Sim money because I've messed up somehow
Christianlov's wallet controller
- because Sims don't have to know the person they're sending money to, so it's perfect for tax payments
Christianlov's name-changer
- so a prince can become king, or a bride can take her husband's rank
Pescado's hack that stops Sims incessantly feeding babies

Oh goodness, I have well over 2 1/2 thousand mods.

off the top of my head...

Community Lot Time
simblender
batbox
simlogical school system
transfer mirror
closet plugin gussy up
visitor controler
No 20 k handouts
elders less bladder
elders sleep through
elder job equality
Monique's computer
cyjon loan jar
no weather wake up
coffee cup fix
essential fixes
OMSP's
corner counter usable
centrepiece as centrepiece
Inventory transfer jar
day setter
season setter
wallet controller
job stopinator
inaccessible beds
Triplet&Quads
Cyjon loan jar
Mortage shrubs
halved wages
no townie neighbours
all the mods that stop or reduce NPC's and townies
48 hour semesters for uni
double ageing mod
2 day pregnancy mod
all the base hood uni mods by squidge
watch TV on an angle
less tree fires
automatic till
exnem buyable foods
simwardrone employee controllers
don't walk away while cooking
attraction trait fix
watch kids
extended family
romance mod
risky woohoo
hacked coat hook
in the zone fixes and other hobby sanity savers
kids can cook
lockable garge
no watch out driveways
rotatable driveways
sim manipulator
memory manipulator

probably a hundred more.

nowhatsthis .. Honestly, family of 5 all go to the far edge of the lot , where I have added a pooltile and a plant to cover it (for pond water mod)... Not to mention after that , they go to another edge of the same lot, to see the same fashinating thing!

And nothing satisfies them, even if it's really useful.

Oh I don't know, they clapped for the driveway that I put down yesterday -and funny enough this is one thing that 90% of the time doesn't bother me and I don't have it modded out.

They anticipated you buying them a car. XD

Maybe!

Well since they have a ute in the garage they will be disappointed. I think I must have accidentally deleted the driveway piece.

All of them, and I mean hundreds upon hundreds.

But among my favorites:
ACR
Christianlov's visitor manager, control mirror
Almost all of Pescado's hacks-especially the Lot Sync Timer, batbox and 'nowhatsthis', baby minder.
Monique's computer
BO's 'No Sim Loaded", "Children left unattended"
XPTL's "Time clock"

All the hacks to keep disruptions to the game at a minimum.

Excluding the essential mods, like the Batbox, No Sim Loaded, etc. - I pick these (although I will probably think of some others later)

1. Pescado's Community Skilling - it has changed my game substantially. Community lots now have a purpose; sims go to community lots (well, some of them) not only to skill, but to teach and be taught. It works well with Sophie-David's mods from here, and I really love the

2. Flamingo of the Dance and the other Opportunity mods - especially lovely when used in my Uni hood;

3. ACR (which is probably less essential to me, but it is a whole lot of fun) and with that goes

4. Pescado's Romancemod

5. Karaoke builds charisma from Neder - because some of my sims tend to like singing karaoke on community lots

6.Tom Duhamel's mod from here - Better Look Through - which stops neighbours from arriving to slap your sim with his telescope

7. Cyjon's Bread fruit tree fix - because that tree was always on fire in my game before (and I liked to use it, especially before I had)

8. Perfect Plants

9. Macrotastics by Pescado - because I really like the macro clean/ macro socialize/macro pay bills options (especially in large families).

In no particular order:

1. The Various Anti-Corruption Features
2. The College Adjuster (so i don't actually have to play Uni)
3. Sim Wardrobe's Season and Weather Controller (so I can keep the lots in synch
4. Age Adjuster to age up Sims I don't wanna play in synch with the neighbourhood
5. Sim Blender and the Various other Adjusters
6. Money Order
7.Lot Debugger
8. Custom skin for the Lot Debugger to get rid of the "batbox"(hurhurhur) design.
9. Anti Redundancy
10. Baby-wants fix (so that biological children and adopted ones count the same) and Same-Sex Marriage fix (to get rid of that "joined" nonsense and have Same sex marriage count towards merriage wants/LTW)
11. No humble (to keep the Abomination of Desolation from appearing in my game) and No Hobbie Zombies
12. Sim Logical's School Selector (Because that Headmaster poop gets tired if you have to do it multiple times each generation, I just wish there was a way to pay for Private School)

Also I do NOT use ACR, just mentioning that because a lot of the time it's treated like everybody has it in the game. Well I don't and I don't want it.

ACR because I'd rather throw all my single sims on a lot, have them all flirt with who they want and decide for themselves who they're going to be in a relationship with. Also I don't like initiating cheating in my game, but sadly it's a part of life, so I let my sims decide if they want to cheat - that way I'm not just purposefully ruining a sims life for no reason. Oh and my sims with single beds who can't afford hot tubs can woohoo on the sofa. That's quite useful.

Inteen - because not all of my sims go off to college when they're 5 days from becoming adults so I neeeeeed independent teens. To me those sims are between the ages of 18-21, which in my opinion is old enough to get a job and hell, some of them even want to marry and start having babies by then. Especially in more rural hoods. Plus, the biological clock for forcing sims to give birth before 6pm to keep aging consistant. and every once in a while, a teen pregnancy for the hell of it. Nothing spices up quiet family life like your daughter giving birth to quads after she finishes her homework.

Oh, and while I'm at it - Random Triplets/Quads - I like genetics, so if I can get 2/3/4 babies from one batch, cool. Speeds things up a little. Plus it creates chaos. Even though half the time I'm shouting "NO DON'T BE QUADS!" at my screen.

Hacked wedding arch (if objects count) - I just find shotgun/arranged marriages fun. I had two sims with -100/-100 relationship wed. They fight all the time but thanks to ACR they have a daughter too. It's a barrel of fun when I don't temporarily move out the husband because I'm tired of breaking up fights. Plus sometimes in royal hoods or rural hoods, I allow cousins to get married, but I don't want a mod so that ALL cousins can marry/find each other attractive.

and then there's default replacement skintones. I've dabbled with different ones over the years, I've had maxis-match games and semi-realistic games, but all in all, as long as there's more than 4 geneticised skintones, because that's just not enough for me and I tend to get bored easier. More or less all of my sims marry/have children with someone of a different skintone, even if it's by a shade or two. So I need more options.

All the no corruption/convenience mods, then these are just for gameplay. I think of these as the ones that I forget aren't vanilla:

Nojealousyatall, so I don't need (or want) ACR
community skilling
buy/build enable
kids left unattended and toddlers and pets on vacation/comm lots
my better babies cocktail with Pescado's baby manager thing
quiet pregnancy - I like to be surprised
flexischool
witches that can walk to lots
harvestable fruit sims can eat from the ground
all-in-one bathrooms
Numenor's no cutaway walls
need freak, VC, InSim selector and others
every autonomous item I can find, SimPE for all sorts of tweaks like making NPCs look like playables, tweaking objects, recoloring
Lot Adjuster and Grid Adjuster and OMSPs for making everything look walkable and just plain better
I have several cheats on that I wouldn't want to play without, esp one to allow more sims on a lot and one to make pets controllable.

So many others...

I have all of the corruption-prevention Mods that I could find from one of the threads here on MTS.

My "can't live without" Mods (I have loads & I love all of them but I'll list 10 of which I can think of):

AutoYakYak Macro Phone Caller by Pescado
Bring Friend Home Dialogue (work version by Monique & school version by TwoJeff)
No chance cards (work & school) by Aaroneous
Welcome Wagon Dialogue by Twojeff
Pregnancy For All Genders by TwoJeff
Engagement Memory Fix by Twojeff
No Weekly Report by TwoJeff
Mega College Pack (Uni at home) by Squinge
Just Be Friends by Midgethetree
Hereditary Supernaturalism by Midgethetree

Edit: I used to use ACR but not anymore. I like control over my Sims, I let them do what they want romantically but I like to decide who goes with who. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Another Mod I love a lot is BO's Unlimited Sims. Without that Mod in my game, I'd be lost. :D

Here are my "must have" mods (excluding all of the annoyance removing mods and adult mods). Several are for improved romance and jealousy which, in my opinion, were not well implemented in the vanilla game. I do not use ACR.

Ask Romantic Interest by Chris Hatch -- to see if there's any point in trying romantic actions
Insimenator - for adding Selectable and Wardrobe options to Sims' menus
Inteenimater - for teen pregnancy, birth control and risky behaviors
LessJealousy by Cyjon -- Jealousy only if Steady/Engaged/Married
PaintedCanvasHeightAdjustable by Chris Hatch -- for placing multiple Sim painted pictures above/below each other
PregRel-NL+ by Chris Hatch -- for relationship hits for both teen and affair pregnancies
Romancemod by Pescado -- more logical romance based on Sim's Aspiration
Triplets and Quads - Random Only by TwoJeffs -- what's more exciting than unexpectedly having 3 or 4 new Sims to take care of?
Unlimited Sims by Boiling Oil -- to allow large (and really large) families

@Sunrader
Oh I like that, where can I find it? :D

I use the pets version of this quiet pregnancy. It works fine without any of the other mods here, because it just turns off the chimes. http://modthesims.info/d/108011
I have a three-way poly relationship now where they don't know or care which man is the father. I like that I don't either.

I don't have so many mods (since I remodeling my downloadsfolder)
But so far..
1. Perfect Gardens
2. Pond and sea water (by Voeille)
3. No Hobby stalker
4. Pregnancy Wear Any Outfit
5. No Pause frame
6. SkyFix
7. Neighbourhood decoration allowed in lots
8. Sliders


And ofcourse a ightning and camera "mod" + Sun and moon replacement.
Well, that wasen't much