Here's what I have so far. Note that I can't install Enhanced Lighting and FX as I don't have any DLC installed. That's also preventing me from installing the unofficial patch, too.
Is there anything you guys would add to a lightly modded game? I'm just looking for what people would consider the essentials really, and when I've added all the mods I need I'll give an ENB a go.
Since you have no mods related to settlement building, I'm going to assume you're not interested in that aspect of the game.
For a lightly modded game with no settlement building beyond the minimum, I'd recommend two more mods:
Full Dialogue Interface. https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1235
Changes the dialogue interface to display what your character will actually say, not the rubbish vanilla system of summaries that might or might not bear much resemblence to what's actually said. I'm not sure why the vanilla system exists at all, let alone why it's the only possibility without mods. It's obviously a console thing, but do Bethesda think all console players are too illiterate to read a whole sentence?
Screen Flicker Killer and no blur effect. https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/3191
Repairs the screen on your pipboy so it works properly. No flickering, no blurring, no scan lines, no shuddering, no fading, no failure of vertical hold. No other changes - just a properly working screen. It makes playing the game much less irritating and it's lore-friendly - since your character uses their pipboy so much, why would they
not fix it?
Those are two mods I think shouldn't be needed because the vanilla game should be like that anyway. But it isn't, so the mods are a huge improvement.
If you later decide that you want to do more exploring, there are some excellent mods that add extra locations. Some are DLC sized new areas with multiple quests (e.g. Fusion City Rising), some are collections of locations added into the main game by linking doors in currently unused buildings to new interior cells (e.g. Lexington Interiors, Beantown Interiors), some are both (e.g. Tales of the Commonwealth).
EDIT: You might well end up wanting a mod to shut up Preston Garvey and his endless radiant quests. The one I use is no longer recommended, so I won't recommend it. It works, but it messes with the Minutemen faction quests and can break the game. I've seen some newer ones that don't, but I don't know anything about them.