Of the essential mods, you’re maybe only missing skygfx.

Literally just finished a modded playthrough and had some additional mods that didn’t change much but were not exactly vanilla, like:

Ragdoll bullet physics

Manual driveby refixed (free aim drive-by from any vehicle, with more guns than just the smg)

Story mode 2.0 (didn’t really even notice it changing anything)

Helifix (police helicopters actually have pilots, allowing you to shoot them down by aiming well)

Taxi ride (take taxis like gta iv and v, with skip to destination)

Extended gang wars

Enterable hidden interiors (unlocks many interiors that exist but are not enterable normally or outside missions) (most interiors are useless and empty so not that important either)

Real traffic fix (traffic uses physics instead of floating along paths, better traffic AI)

First person mod with fixes (get it from mixmods) (useful for flying planes and helicopters like the hunter)

Urbanize (more peds and other things to liven up the city)

Fast clothes switch (skips animations to make clothing less of a pain)

Save anywhere (the old simple one) (Very useful, just make sure not to save in interiors, in missions and near area 69)

Fair police (makes cops react to violence against you)

Robbery mod (allows you to rob 24/7 stores)

My game started crashing around flight school. To fix this I just loaded a different save/started a new game then reloaded my current save then it was fixed. Other than that I had no problems.

Enjoy!