A lot of great questions that I am not sure if I can exactly answer but I know people who are more likely able to, but I'll try regardless. I'd suggest joining the Discord and asking Behemoth Programmer because he has modified Turok 2 quite extensively, and he would have a better idea of things than I do.

1. I am not sure if its possible to alter the checkpoint stations, I've never seen anyone try.

2. Possibly, what did you have in mind for the pick up generators?

3. It may be possible by attaching a script to the red lifeforces, checking the game's difficulty setting, and having them replace their selves with a version that only grants 2 life tokens. I'll test this out and let you know. I am not sure if Turok 2 detects game difficulty, but T1 does.

4. I have limited experience with T2's editor. Have you tried opening an existing map, copying the enemy you want in your new map, and pasting it in? You may be missing some important flags or setup.

Update: I am successful in attaching a script to the red lifeforce. However, I am having difficulty figuring out how the game checks difficulty. There is an enum value, but I cannot find an example of how to reference it in a script. Behemoth may know more.

I have created a mod that is largely complete, and is meant to be a Turok+ (mod for Turok1)-style upgrade that stays with the original design intent but makes the game overall better. More info to come soon.

I just have a question or three for the modders here:

1: how could I possibly modify the checkpoint stations? Say I wanted to make them only grant half ammo on higher difficulties so you're not running around with endless explosives totally ignoring half the arsenal?

2: What about universally modifying one bool on all pickup generators?

3:  lastly, how about making lifeforces available on hardcore, but instead reducing red LF to 2 (hardcore only). This would be alongside the checkpoints only granting half ammo above and some other things.
It would be nice if many of the games secret areas were not rendered pointless by the removal of lifeforces and game difficulty was not about spamming quicksave.

With these implemented I can call it complete. If you can answer, please spell it out for a noob. I have decent coding experience but not with C++