I know most of the Bethesda RPGs have massive mod support, and there's games like Minecraft that have more mods than anyone can imagine. I would consider those games pretty playable in their vanilla states. Would you say there are any games that were "saved" by modding? Or that are still kept alive by thriving modding communities? What are some of your favorite mods?
Space Engineers the base game is great, but it comes to life with mods.
From simple things like a more immersive way to paint blocks or customised UI to to hole NPC Factions, new Weapons, dekorative Stuff, all the way to hole new physics systems like Water with flotation, Aerodynamics or re-entry heat.
I rarely play my games with mods, this game is one of the few exceptions. I even went so far as to create some very minor mods my self.
Both actually. I have a server for a small group of friends and we play regularly together. It is our 4th save we started and this time we do some RP with some minor PvP.
But often I load up a creative world put some music on an just design ships or vehicles. It is like playing with virtual Lego with the benefit that you can blow it up afterwards.
I haven't done it in some time but playing alone on a survival save game is enjoyable too, especially with said NPC and physics mods. Last year I played along with some YouTuber who shared is savegame.
But I have to admit that it's hard to get into without a starting point. Not because it's hard or complicated, because it is a complete sandbox without fixed goals.