The Great ReBuild 2010: Paring things down?

[strangetomato]

I'm struggling with this rebuild. At first I was going to package up all the sims that have been born in the those neighborhoods and share them and then do the same for my edited lots, but every time I load the game to do so, I lose steam fast. I've now settled on only packaging up characters and lots that I absolutely can't do without. So that means any story characters that have already been featured (and one that hasn't — Phi's mystery baby), and maybe some lots (the Summerdream place comes to mind), but everything else will be played through and made over again. That'll take some time, but it'll be far less tedious than piecing it together bit by bit.

I think I'm going to start by playing the fresh megahood to give myself a chance to see what I truly miss from my other game. I'm going to keep my cc (though I'm paring that down quite liberally), but I want to try to use the bare minimum of hacks and things like that. That brings me to my question of the day (and it's a classic one):

If you were going to start over with only a handful of hacks, which ones would you consider essential?

Comments

[jyllandrea.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it goes without saying that I primarily use hacks by Pescado.

Here are some others I use that haven't caused me any conflicts. I think I'm going to get the HCDU just so I have it.

A bunch of Symbology Uni Hacks have recently come to my attention. Saved my sanity and I especially love the fact that I see my Young Adults walking around the hood.

Also Monique's No Spoiled Food is so needed. I don't use the one that is never ending, it just takes the food longer to spoil. It seems that food spoils way too quickly in game. Although now that I have Mog's Autonomous Put Away Leftovers... But then again, if I decide to do a shoot with food ever.

Mog has a great desk location hacked obj and she fixed Ratrace magazine.

Rufio made some nice genealogy fixes which he has on Maty.

Tunaisafish @ Insim (?) made the Attraction Traits Fix. I use the version that makes the custom hair attraction into Aliens. I also use his Less Outdoor Idle animation. The all the time sun saluting thing was just annoying. You can get a version that will totally kill it too. Symbology also has this.

ass-hoods-nag-hack - if you don't want to add a subhood on a hood this will kill that stupid popup. I found this on WCIF at MATY. I have no idea who made it.

Marhis and Inge's Special wedding arch is truly the awesome. You can marry multiple sims with it (polygamy ftw)or marry sims for reason of convenience. It's great for people doing Medieval or Royalty where they want to marry kids and teens to adults. It's just marriage if you don't have teen/adult sex hacks. Oh and it has Marhis' marriage name chooser on it.
She has a fix for the bamboo floor that is a must have if you use that flooring at all. Maxis gave it a minus environment score. Both on MATY. The latter might be at MTS too.

Dumbfools Vehicles Use Garage Doors. Just what it says. Also on MATY.

There is hack, on MATY, called something like, Fixed Objects For Mantels. Except they didn't use the word mantel. It's just nice to be able to place more of the objects on mantels that should go on mantels.

All of Gwillewyn's paintings for annoying wants. I finally had enough of my stupid fortune sims wanting bowling alleys. If there is something better than this, I would love to know about it. They're on MTS and MATY.

Neder at MTS has NoCASSmiling and NoYACASSmiling hacks.

As for fixes:
fway at MTS has a Base Game Nursery Items take ALL Regular Bedding. Now, I don't use this, but on that same page, there is a fix for the crib mapping. Yes. They screwed it up. No, they never fixed it.
Numenor has a lot of useful fixes/removers I use.
Fanseelamb fixed the club counter's dirty state and HugeLunatic fixed the rugs if you place them off grid.

I love it when people fix EA/Maxis screw ups.

I see I have one called IRYSY in my hacks. I have no idea what this does. A google for IRYSY only get's you pics of irises and a bunch of Polish websites. heh

Long post is long (and late to the party, of course), but maybe you'll get some use? Maybe other people will. I know there are some new places for me to check out on other posts. Thanks!