Maximum number of animals per combined file

[VNDragonV2]

We have long blown past the known item per menu limit for animals, even among the 3d-rendered models in recent years. However, my current max number of animals caps out at 996, so I did a little test using Hawkkeye's ZT animals. His ZT folder alone has 1010 animals and I also wanted to test the effect of different menu filters.

First round of tests is illustrated with a screenshot below (I am also using Particle's 4x12). Top of the screenshot is the bottom of the "Zoo Tycoon" filter, while the bottom (separated by a blue line) is for several animals only shown in the "Marine Mania" filter. The first test had all his ZT animals combined into 1 .ztd (left corner), then I split the combined files into two files (502 & 508 animals per file - cutoff was between A-J & K-Z alphabetically) for the latter two tests. The total number of animals in "All" is very similar: 312 for single .ztd, 311 for A-J, and 312 for K-Z. The only oddball is from the first test with the single .ztd, which showed 4 fewer new animals between the "ZT" and "MM" filters despite having the same number of animals in "All". Subsequent replicates when I recompiled the single combined .ztd did not show this, so it was likely a consequence of me deleting a couple of animals I don't use in the previous file.

There were a bunch of misc tests in the second round. The key finding is that when the two split files were in the folder together, the total new animals increased to 312, exactly double of 192, despite having the same total file size and content as the single combined .ztd from the first test. Once I put all other combined animal ztds back into the game, my max number of animals in "All" increased to 1186 (vs the previous 996 cap).

 

TL; DR: 192 animals per combined ztd.

This limit might be applicable to other item categories if someone else is willing to test them. Scenery is the next contender since I can imagine some folks here having 200+ of them in their game.