I currently have 196 .esp files and 96 .bsa. With combat and immersion packages that I collected, it will be close to 250 .esp.

I know there is a limit at how many mods game can handle. My questions are:

-Is the limit only affected by esp, or bsa somehow add to it?

-What happens when I finally reach 250 esp? Game wont even load? It will crash? It will freeze? It will load but will be unstable?

-I noticed more mods I install, more infinite loading screen issues I have. And it happens with totally random new mods. Is it the case of mod limit?

-I know there is merging script for TES5Edit but its hard to make it work. I managed to merge only PM Music files and few patches. Are there any working tricks modders use to bypass a limit?

The cap is 255 (or 254 counting Update.esm)

-Only .esp and .esm, which includes Update.esm and all the DLCs you have.

-It simply won't load, I guess.

-This should be the case of your game trying to load everything, or due to a large save file size.

-http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/1840 is a good tool for it.

The actual limit is 253. Indexes 00 and 01 are used by Skyrim.esm and Update.esm and index FF is reserved for saves. That leaves indexes 02-FE for any other esm- and esp-files.