Weird things happening when creating a new zeus mission from scratch

How to create a working zeus mission that works? And by "works" I mean these weird things not happening:

1. Some players instantly spawn as units like in a regular mission, while some of them behave like in a zeus game (spawning into the spawn selection screen). All of them being in the same squad.

2. When placing civilian playable slots, one of them gets taken when a player selects zeus in the slot selection screen.

3. Same as 2. sometimes happens for other factions too

All of this on a new mission, with only the basic ZEUS modules and a curator and curator unit synchronized.

Am I missing something in the setup or are these bugs?

I get weird tasks from noweher at the start of my missions (e.g. "Fire a machine gun"). I havent created them, I havent used a template. They are just popping out of nowhere.