General question on total record number

[amokrun1]

I've been using FO4Edit for the past little while, but I imagine the question I have applies to both.

 

I simply want to know how many total records one can create in a non-ESL plugin before issues(if any) arise. I've been working on a mega-patch and it is getting rather lengthy in this regard.

[VIitS]

There is no limit for a single plugin. The game has a nebulous limit where it can only have so much data of any given record type, but that is based as much on the data size of each record as it is on the number of records, and that limit is for all plugins combined, not how much you can have in a single plugin. As an example, the limit for moderately large (~240 data size as reported in FO4Edit) ALCH records is ~650,000 "unique" records*.

 

That said, with ESLs (preferred format is .esp with ESL flag), there is little point to using mega-patches, since unless you are approaching the 4096 ESL limit (which is... unlikely). Merging mods I could understand, if you have more than 250 that you want to use that are also too large to fit in an ESL**, but patches are generally composed entirely of overrides, and there is no limit to the number of overrides you can have in an ESL.

 

*Unique meaning cloned records, but each with their own unique FormID, so the game considers them to be separate records and not overrides.

**Which is less likely now (assuming you are using an up-to-date version of FO4) that the new record space for ESLs has been expanded to 4095 new records instead of 2048.

[amokrun1]

Ah ok thanks. My patch is actually exactly that, a slew of overrides and new record copies that adjust/change the mods I want to use. This is good to know, thanks again.