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

[simlili.livejournal.com]

Delurking to say that I've only recently discovered Cyjon's work, and although I was a bit reluctant, I couldn't do without some of his hacks anymore, and I haven't experienced any problem with them.

I physically couldn't stand anymore my sims having orgasms over a stupid omelette being in the room, so No Smells Yummy is like seated to the right hand of the batbox. I mean stop it, or you and those spaghetti get a room already.
Still non essential but preventing me from throwing objects at the wall is No Chair Shooing, you know when your starving sim drops the plate because Goopy decided to join for lunch and he doesn't want your sim anywhere near the table.
I tried Just Leave Already, which is great but resets everything like when you add a new Ep (all sims out of bed, with full bars), so I took it out for now.

And I thought my new favourite was by him but it appears it's Squinge's No Cuddling Under Sheets, because I hated it that sims had to get up at 4AM to be able to shower and leave for work at 9. And also, I think, if you love hubby you won't ruin his night because you go to work earlier than he does. Now, I can see why you storytellers wouldn't want this one (wink wink at S,HWC) but it's a must have to me.

Good luck with your hood! Thanks to the very useful tips I'm gonna steal from previous comments.