I want to know why a scenario such as "default activity", seems to run reasonably well, versus some of the other scenarios even if I greatly turn down the spawn time and the numbers of actors spawned.

What's the key difference?

Uh... I didn't understand much your question. Could you explain it a bit?

The map you pick?

IMO the maps in this game are too big. Just add some layers in somehow, and they won't have to be giant. Caves, you know, or buildings or something. The map with the dog in the mountain is pretty perfect.

In the hope data's reading this:
The bug where actors explode when being at a map's wrapping border really needs fixing.

Some of my maps have a base in the map's border and walking actors around in it leads to loads of spontaneous combustions.

I've never had the case of mapwrap actorsplosions.
Weird.

I've had, more specifically with Gotcha!'s Map Pack! Generally while playing in In Flight.

something that would help us a lot in tracking down the cause for rarely occurring bugs like this is an .rte with a scene and a script that causes this wrapping border explosion to happen all the time, ie have actors constantly spawn right next to a border, walking across. that way I can keep the debugger trained on the code where this might happen and catch it in action.

If anyone feels like putting an .rte like that together and posting it here, it'd be greatly appreciated

I can provide a map, but have no clue how to script.

This mario map has the 'deadzone' on/around the flag.

If playing with an actor long enough near this spot it'll pop sooner or later.

so does the guy gib, or just disappear, and when exactly? when he's crossing the border?

I am sorry to make this even more complicated but it does both. Usually the actor gibs to pieces, but in rarer instances he just disappears without a trace.
In one such a game I was playing survival with my brain and it just disappeared, instantly throwing FAIL in my face.

Also, this isn't limited to player actors. I've seen AI characters crossing the x-border and gib as well. (So at least the game plays somewhat fair. Teehee.)

I've read that at least one person has had it happen when almost nothing is present on the map, but for me it usually happens when there's a lot going on. Not necessarily nearby.

I wish I could help more. I'd almost give my left kidney to see this bug gone.

Edit: They don't necessarily cross the border. In one MP3 map (Snow Cave) player one's base is right on the border and units stationed in there sometimes just gib while standing around.

In some... rare occurrences, when an actor gibs, it would seem that some of the gibs are teleported or duplicated and spawned at the top of the map wrapping point. I can definitely recall having torrents of gibs raining down on me.

It happened to me heaps in B23, on grasslands, when fighting in between those two floaty bits. iirc MOSParticles were distorted at the wrap point too. I'll have a look now...

Once I had problems with a guy dissapearing when crossing the border because his script used an ObstacleRay with off map starting coordinates(they became offmap only when crossing the border).

Are there keyboard shortcuts for the grappling gun functions?

'Keyboard shortcuts' don't exist in vanilla content.

.. the reason being that keyboard players can't have advantages like that over gamepad players! we gotto keep the control schemes as consistent as possible, so that keyb vs gamepad matches aren't unfair