What mods do you suggest for a new player?

[mmogaddict]

So I was looking through a few youtube videos when somebody playing this game caught my eye, as a sucker for survival/building type games the level of detail in this game grabbed the inner collector/builder and person who likes games where you go into a little too much detail when building/making things and before I could stop them they had jumped out of me and grabbed my wallet and brought the game.

After seeing all the mods my first question is, which ones do people highly recommend getting, especially for starting a new world.

[Cattastrafy]

I'm a bit biased cause I shy away from mods in general (no hate whatsoever to people that like em) but I dont think it's a bad practice to "do a run" without mods FIRST and then choose mods after awhile.

This also gives you first hand experience to know what you'd like to change about the base game to tailor it better to your preference anyways.

[Thorfinn]

Welcome to the forums, @mmogaddict!

I, too, like to play unmodded the first time each new release comes out. I get others prefer a different take. What kinds of gameplay do you like? Are you looking for lightly modded, mostly QoL stuff? Or mods that expand greatly on game capabilities?

For the latter, I can't recommend Primitive Survival highly enough. But there's a lot of meat to it. Most find the base game itself to be a little overwhelming at first. Expanded Foods is the same way. There are so many options it can be daunting. Wildcraft, too, though it makes the game significantly easier.

For the former, one of the versions of StepUp, CarryOn, one of the map markers, (egocarib's or Apache's -- most people I know use the former), one of the HUDs (Rhonen's is probably the easiest to use, though you have to use the "unauthorized" patch version at the moment), Zoom Button Reborn or something like that, latest version is from Spear and Fang (and while you have his name in the search bar, you might as well snag Buzzwords and Sortable Storage.) I'm sure there are a lot of others; those are just off the top of my head, and are pretty minimal in terms of changed game play.

Edited March 14, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Maelstrom]

I play modded, but I concur with @Cattastrafy - play the game unmodded to find your personal frustrations and preferences.  Mine are almost assuredly different than yours.   I followed this advice myself.  My first long term world started unmodded and as I discovered my preferences looked for mods to address such frustrations and preferences.

[mmogaddict]

Thanks everyone. Just finished my first tentative steps into the game... for some reason it is now 6am.

Guess I better get some sleep.

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums! I agree with @Cattastrafy too, play the vanilla game first and learn the basics, and then decide what mods, if any, you'd like to add. That also gives you time to tune the game settings to your liking first.

One thing I will note though when it comes to mods and VS, is that it's better(in my experience) to keep a shorter mod list, instead of trying to run everything and the kitchen sink--especially if you have more moderate hardware. Big mods that add lots of things also tend to be more demanding on hardware than smaller mods.

[JRF2k]

The only mod I know I can never play without is the Step Up mod. It automatically jumps up voxels so you're not banging on the keyboard 1000 times a minute. Another one that's useful is the Carry On mod. It allows you to pick up and carry stuff. It's handy. Other than those, I like vanilla, and I think the devs should make these two part of the base game.

[AnniPicto]

I would recommend testing before installing mods in the main world. Create a world without the mod. Install the mod, see how it appears in this world, make some things from this mod. Remove the mod, see what happens to the test world now.
This helps to understand what you are risking when installing different types of mods (although it does not give the full picture)

I think the most useful mod is "Immersive Corpse Drop". When you are fighting monsters all night, you look at the inventory of each of them. 9 out of 10 can be empty, and the process of opening and closing an empty inventory is very annoying. Especially if there are not 10 monsters, but 50

[Never Jhonsen]

Here are some of the simple mods I use that won't break your world should you decide to remove them.

- Better Firepits: Currently, when you cook a stack of an item, every time one finishes the temperature resets. This is wildly unrealistic, wasteful, and impractical. This is a fix for that.

- Auto Map Markers: You'll need  to configure it first, however this mod makes marking things quicker. Picking resin up automatically marks it, same with copper and tin bits on the ground.

- QP ChiselTools: If you like to chisel, this makes it easier.

- Flour Bags: This puts flour (and other powders) into visually stylistic bags.

- Pick Block: This allows you to swap blocks in and out of your hotbar by merely looking at a block, and hitting the configured key.Useful for builds that need more than 10 blocks at once.

[-Glue-]

I also tend to do an unmodded playthrough of games first, with a few QoL mods sprinkled in throughout.
For me, QP's Chisel Tools, and Stone Quarry are a must have in any playthrough! I'm surprised no one has recommended Stone Quarry yet tbh! It makes gathering and crafting stone materials waaaay less tedious, its also done in a really immersive, and engaging way! I desperately hope the base game adds those features in the future.

I also use the mod Heat Retention, which adds a new simple item that lets you turn chiseled blocks into insolated blocks. So you can have nice detailed chiseled builds that actually function for survival! (Vanilla has given me a lot of problems with insulation, so its a really nice workaround!)

Most the other popular mods seem a bit too much for the first playthrough or two, the base game has a lot to keep you active as is. Though, I do want to try out Primitive Survival at some point! I see a lot of people swear by it!