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The game's engine as well as the level editor have their limits. Unfortunately, the technical limits do not quite go hand in hand with the performance limits. It is very difficult to specify the engine's limits in exact values, but this article tries to outline some rough figures.

Face count, number of objects/robots, number of visible portals, portals between inside and outside engine, lighting, and many other factors have major impacts on the framerate and playability of a level.

Fischlein has set up a page where Atan provides the limits of D3Edit. This only gives us an overview about the technical possibilities. Although it is very important to know these restrictions it is not recommended to challenge them. Now, what's the game do with it?

If you try to put 500 bots in one single room the game will certainly not be playable anymore as soon as the player reaches this room. It'll be too slow, the framerate will drop down significantly, in fact, down to the non-playable limit. Only take this as an example as I have no idea whether you could actually put 500 bots in a single room.

One of the points listed very often is the computer speed and overall performance, something like "If you can't play it on a certain computer just use it on a bigger machine". Descent is a very old game, hence it should be possible to play it on almost every average machine nowadays. Players with a high-end system expect the game to have a continuous framerate of 100 or more. If the framerate drops down to under 30 frames per second in a single room they'd call it unplayable because they are used to better. Despite that, Descent doesn't support multiple CPUs. If a player with a less performant machine continuoulsly has a framerate of around 30 and it drops down to 1 or even less it certainly is not playable anymore. As you can see, it is very important to keep an eye on performance issues.