You could try joining a public server (I don't have any recommendations, don't play on them much myself) and seeing what mods they use, or just browse the contentdb for stuff that looks cool. This is definitely an issue that makes the game less approachable to new players. It's hard to get the ideal experience of a bunch of cool mods that work well together if you don't already know which mods are good or have a friend hosting a server for you that put the mods together.
Take a look at MultiCraft, a fork. I paid (less than a dollar) for the mobile version, but my understanding is that you can compile the repo code and get a runnable version yourself (whether for PC or Android). It's on Github.
Anyone have recommendations? Nodecore looks fun, am open to others as well.