>>529411208
[...] or immediately go with a pre-made TUFX profile and call it a day. Visual mod "packs" (Big names, like Spectra, for example) are essentially profiles for two mods: Scatterer and EVE (short for Evironmental Visual Enhancements). Typically you install specific compatible versions and then DON'T TOUCH THE SETTINGS for these mods, and let the "visual pack" you install add it's own profiles. You will break your install if you think "hmm can I turn down the clouds a bit here?"". If clouds are too thick in certain visual packs, swap packs. Sadly it's the only way (believe me I've tried to find a workaround for this for days of my wasted life).

Me personally I prefer "Astronomers Visual Pack" for it's all-round appearance overall, but since I now play mostly in the Jool system (I have an MKS surface base on Laythe), the overbearing cloud layer makes surface landing insanely difficult, so I use "Spectra" now. It has the added bonus of having nicer sunrises and eclipse hues on Laythe (as well as general daytime atmospheric hue) but BY GOD does it make Kerbin feel like a cartoon blue planet during the day holy lord. Ew.

So for Visuals, with all this context, I'd recommend you go for a "visual pack" of your liking, which will have dependencies on Scatterer and EVE (these are technically mods on their own but their base profiles are a little undertuned and underwhelming so nobody actually uses them this way, ergo it's technically improper to tell you they 'add this or that', so this is why I'm phrasing it this way), and then just enjoy how the game looks playing stock.

As you play the game more, and you start getting more into the "visuals" of the planets over just straight going to them, then I'd consider adding "Parallax" (which now goes by the name of Parallax Continued I think? Apparently the original mod author Lynx dropped it a while ago). But outright I won't recommend it because...