All the mods (and load-order, though it shouldn't matter for most mods) I use/recommend for enhancing the vanilla experience. All of these mods should also work with anything else you want to use, but may require additional patches.

Sometimes options are offered; I'd recommend you only use one mod when choices are given. The game will most likely break if they're all active.

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• Extended Soundtrack - Adds in official songs that aren't present in the music player.
  
• Talking Non-Humanoid Portraits - Changes the "voice" of different portraits to better match their look.
  
• Stellaris Enhanced Sound Project - Overhauls a lot of the sounds in the game, see mod for more info.
  
• Crisis Noise-B-Gone - Removes the ambient crisis noises (beeping, whispers, wet munching etc).

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• Backgrounds+ - Replaces the backgrounds/loading screens throughout the game. Submods can be found here.
  
• Backgrounds+ Vanilla Add-on - Adds the vanilla loading screens back into the loading screen pool.
  
• Beautified Gaia Worlds - Better planet skins for Gaia worlds.
  
• Starlight - Changes stars actually emit light rather than the light source being the middle of the system. Also makes black hole systems more gloomy, which some people don't like. [CURRENTLY BROKEN WITH TOXOIDS, FIXED VERSION IN MOD COMMENTS]
  
• No Prime - Replaces "Prime", "Secundus" etc with planet name (eg: "Sol Prime" to "Sol III").
  
• Clean Rare-Feature Frame - Removes the dirt from the rare-feature frames.
  
• ASB Ironman - Makes weapon graphics look better.

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• Better Faction Info - Adds opinion change indicators to faction wants.
  
• Tier Numbers Tech - Adds tier numbers to tech icons to better differentiate them.
  
• Tech Tiers Revealed - Displays the tech tier after the tech name, useful for tech beelining.
  
• Detailed Tech Tooltips - Shows what future research the tech leads to, useful for tech beelining.
  
• Centred Flag Emblems - Centres the off-centre flag emblems.

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• Clearer Occupied System Markers - Makes occupied systems clearer. Choose one of the three options, I prefer Alternative 2.
  
• Light Borders - Makes the borders look better. Choose one of the four options, I prefer standard+star pins.
  
• No Names on the Map - Removes empire names from the map. I really love it, but many people can't stand it.
  
• Quadrant Fixed - Adds slow spinning rings to the galaxy denoting distance from galaxy core. Static version here.
  
• Whiter Stars - Desaturates stars in the galaxy map, which (in my opinion) makes them look nicer.

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Choose one of the following:

• Vivid Skies - Adds more saturated and vivid skyboxes.
  
• Beautiful Universe - Adds skyboxes based off NASA, EVE Online and digital art.
  
• Immersive Beautiful Universe - Adds skyboxes that change based on distance to the core, star colour etc. Also adds a galaxy background. This is my favourite of the options here.

If you use IBU and want to use Pinwheel Galaxy or Quadrant Fixed, make sure to include the compatibility mod.

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Choose one of the following:

• Pinwheel Galaxy - Changes galaxy background to a more realistic, high quality, animated texture. Also adds golden nebulae and other minor tweaks.
  
• Pinwheel Galaxy Purple - Same as above, but galaxy texture has a purple hue. My personal favourite.
  
• Immersive Beautiful Universe - Adds a blue textured galaxy background, along with golden nebulae and assorted system skyboxes.

If you use IBU for sytem skyboxes and want to use Pinwheel Galaxy, make sure to include the compatibility mod. The compatibility mod is also needed if you're using IBU and Quadrant Fixed.

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I don't actually use either of these, but if you want larger UI choose one of the following:

• UI Overhaul 1080p Plus - Scales up the UI for 1080p+ monitors, reduces scrolling needed.
  
• UI Overhaul Dynamic - UI scales with monitor size. This mod also changes most of the UI, which I personally dislike. Has a lot of submods for customisation, found here.

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I'd highly recommend using one of these, a compact outliner (right side menu) makes the game much nicer to play. Both are amazing, though Compact looks slightly better in my opinion (N.B: Stardust is an early release so has some very minor visual bugs).

• Compact UI Outliner - The important information is placed to the left, sticking out from the outliner. Cleaner look than vanilla.
  
• Tiny Outliner v2 - Very similar to vanilla, just compact. Looks like it was made by PDX.

Tiny Fleets is an add-on for Tiny Outliner which makes the fleets section more compact. I don't like it personally, as it makes the fleet information harder to read.
If you want Tiny Outliner v2 and UI Overhaul Dynamic, only use UI Overhaul Dynamic and the compatibility patch (the patch includes Tiny Outliner v2).

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These extend and alter the topbar so that more information can be shown without having to hover over UI elements. Again, I prefer Compact, though they're both really good mods.

• Compact UI Topbar - Cleaner look than vanilla, and has extra features like decimal places and greying out of unused resources. My preferred topbar mod.
  
• UI Overhaul Dynamic Extended Topbar - Closer to vanilla. Does not require UI Overhaul Dynamic.

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Make sure to add in compatibility patches if needed.

Adding some of these mods will significantly increase load times; larger mods like the music add-ons, any of the skybox mods and Starlight are the main contributors to this.

If you have any recommendations for mods I should add/change, or if a mod has become obsolete, please leave a comment!