Like others I would recommend Vanilla for a first impression.

I say this even as the majority of my mods are chosen to take away the tedium of grinding. Understanding where the game intends to limit you is not a bad place to start.

After that. Farm Grid for sure. I personally will not play solo without Unrestricted Portals anymore. I also like the QOLPins mod simply so I don't have to constantly manage all the map pins myself.