(1) Entities, I think most if not all of them are in "character"
(2) You can go as high as you want as performance will allow you
(3) What you want to do is enable Debug Mode for SOMA, you can alt-tab to it and click F5 to quickly reload your map.
If you have already got your map to show in the Steam/NoSteam Launcher. It should make some files in this path below.
Example Path = "C:\Users\Rapture\My Documents\my games\Soma\Mods\Lockdown"
The file-name has a "user_settings.cfg" at the end, the beginning is your computer/SOMA name with a gargle gook of numbers.
Open it up and do a Ctrl+F for "DebugMode" and change it from false to true.
<Game ShowCommentary="false" />
<Debug ShowFPS="true" ShowSoundPlaying="false" ShowPlayerInfo="false" ShowEntityInfo="false" SaveCheckPointOnMapLoad="false" ShowDebugMessages="false" UseProgLog="false" ShowSoundCategories="false" ShowSoundParams="false" ShowSoundAIEvents="false" ShowModuleInfo="false" ShowMapInfo="false" ScriptDebugOn="false" InspectionMode="false" DisableFlashBacks="false" DrawPhysics="false" AutoReloadResources="false" OutputVoiceAndEventInfo="false" PauseAtWindowOpenClose="true" ShowScriptGC="false" DebugInfoWindow="false" RecordPlayTestData="false" DrawGuiUIBoxes="false" ShowMissingVoiceFileErrorMessage="false" VRAMLimit="1700" ShowTVSafeArea="false" GodModeActivated="false" ReloadScriptAtTaskSwitch="false" ReloadFromCurrentPosition="true" SpecCameraTeleportPlayer="false" ShowPlayerColliderInSpecCam="false" ShowMemoryUsage="false" ShowRenderingInfo="false" ReloadScriptConstantly="false" AllowQuickSave="false" ScriptHelperFolder="script/helpers" LogLabelFilter="-1" WarningLevel="4" LogNonPreloadedResources="false" CollapsedLog="true" />
<Input InvertMouse="false" SmoothMouse="true" InvertPad="false" Rumble="true" MouseSensitivity="1.000000" GamepadSensitivity="2.000000" />
<Map File="" Folder="" StartPos="" />
<Graphics TextureQuality="0" TextureFilter="2" TextureAnisotropy="16.000000" SSAOActive="true" SSAOQuality="0" DepthOfFieldQuality="2" BloomActive="true" WorldReflection="true" Refraction="true" ShadowsActive="true" ShadowQuality="2" ShadowResolution="2" ParallaxQuality="0" ParallaxEnabled="true" Brightness="1.000000" OcclusionTestLights="true" EdgeSmooth="false" ForceShaderModel3And4Off="false" UndergrowthQuality="0" TerrainTessellation="0" AntiAliasing="FXAA" />
<Sound Device="-1" Volume="1.000000" MaxSoftwareChannels="64" MaxVirtualChannels="1000" ForceShowSubtitleCharacterName="false" ShowSubtitles="false" SpeakerType="HomeCinema" />
<Screen Width="1920" Height="1080" FullScreen="true" Vsync="true" RefreshRate="60" />
<Main FirstGameStart="false"[b] DebugMode="true"[/b] GenerateScriptAPI="false" StartLanguage="english.lang" ScreenShotExt="jpg" ForceCacheLoadingAndSkipSaving="true" AutogenerateLangFiles="false" SaveConfig="true" ShowMenu="true" UpdateLogActive="true" ContinueMap="main_menu.hpm" ContinuePos="" />
<MapLoad FastPhysicsLoad="false" FastStaticLoad="false" FastEntityLoad="false" />
<Engine LimitFPS="true" SleepWhenOutOfFocus="true" ShowBrokenMeshes="true" />
<Saving MaxAutoSaves="20" />
<Gameplay FOV="70.000000" />