Fallout 4 mod recommendations & advice

Mod recommendations

DynV Fallout 4 mod recommendations in categories ordered by importance, order inside categories does not matter :

Very high

• Better Low Health
• Mod Organizer 2 (install order suggestion: 1st)
  

High

• Respawn System
• Buffout 4 (install order suggestion: 3rd)
• Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch - UFO4P at Fallout 4 (install order suggestion: 2nd)

Medium

• Operation Manhattan - New York BoS Quest (nice legendaries)
  
• The Secret of Huntress Manor - A Far Harbor Story (nice 10mm legendary)
  
• Moddable Graygarden (Automatron)
• Gatling Laser Ammo Fix
• NPCs Travel along NPCS Travel - Fixes
• Companion Infinite Ammo
• Welcome to Goodneighbor (very nice machete (I didn't check if there was a minimum level for it) ; be aware that it expand Goodneighbor in the opposite side of the entrance blocking an intersection (not an important one IMHO), inside the expanded area look pretty good and I think it's worth it)
• Customize Legendary Enemy Spawning (I suggest being careful with rarity in case you end up in a location which is hard to flee and the % of legendary enemies is as high as it was set, which if it was high might very well be fatal; I use 10% rarity & 50X rate)
• Shaikujin's Better warning for settlements being attacked
• The Fens Sheriff's Department - Bleachers 2 (a moddable cloak (eg dense) donned over armor, damage resistant jewelry, very effective irradiated melee weapon, interesting companion & NPCs, outfit with very nice damage resistance*)
  

* a significant downside is loosing 4 armor mods (eg 2 strengthened + 2 cushioned (for an outfit with same mod as chest)).

Medium-Low

• Free Weapon Downgrades
• Lowered Weapons
• Elegant Hardware - A Jewelry Modification (nice stat-increasing effect, as well as special abilities including a highlight of corpses when a weapon is drawn, on craftable items)
• Bare Hands (during a fight will save the few seconds it takes to bring up Pip-Boy then put back down)
  
• Enclave X-02 Power Armor (there's multiple interesting dependent mods, including X-02 Power Armor - All Factions Paintjob) 
• The Machine And Her (very good story and interesting companion)
• Crimsomrider's Scrounger Perk With DLC Ammo 

Advice

Having a corrupted gamesave can be annoying to outright impossible to play ; the former could be as benign as having a completed quest that won't appear as so, thus name won't deemphasize nor go below the incomplete ones, the latter would be a map element which whenever loaded, even if it's far enough that the textures of the surrounding aren't detailed, crashes to desktop. A corruption might also be hidden and only effect gameplay in a hard-to-reach area of an unpopular DLC, where an important quest goes by at a much higher level, so multiple hours down the line.

Loading a perfectly fine gamesave might lead to corruption, so whenever possible avoid loading the game even if it means you loose a few caps (or a few caps worth of items) or a few XP by keeping the current game state. Using a console command in an improper manner might corrupt a game ; a--terrible--but at the time undetectable one happened to me with a different game of the same engine, Skyrim, and luckily I hadn't ran out of uncorrupt quick and auto saves by the time I found out (IIRC there was a single one and the latest hard save was many play hours back). Mods might also lead to corruption, it may be a good idea to avoid mods with low amount of recommendations.

Using only quick and auto saves won't usually go more than 2 levels back, once all such save include the corruption and none was backed-up, all one can do if the corruption is bad enough is to start a new game. A way to ensure there's always a way to go back far behind it to make separate saves, "hard" saves, or if one is on PC to use a--reliable--backup software (pointing to the quick & auto saves directory).

Bonus

Skyrim mod recommendations, order in parenthesis (if any) :

• SILENT Bards - Stop the Singing Permanently
• Legacy of the Dragonborn SSE along Legacy of the Dragonborn Patches (Official) (highly recommended and to activate ASAP since it adds to many explored locations)