When they settle, becoming terrain. If they don't settle or gib, enemies keep shooting.

Linkfan is probably recalling a torso that wasn't settling because of that ridiculous spinning dead actors do, and wasn't gibbing because it was made not to.

Usually though, an actor that dies due to health loss will quickly settle into terrain and be forgotten by enemies.
A simple script could ensure this, if you really want to be sure you get no rolling torso idiocy.

the lower the health, the faster it settles, I had some stuff settle mid-air at around -80K (i think, it might have been 800K, then again I was also doing some weird stuff at the time, messing with gravity, both X & Y Loops, etc)

worst case with making them not gib, you add lua that forces them to settle when they touch something if the health is below 0...