in b24 after exiting editing mode the actors for both teams are always set to brainhunt mode rather than sentry mode. is there a snippet or something i can change in the skirmish defense and brain vs brain scripts to fix this?

Well, this is hardcoded, but you could add the lines under the Create function for those scripts:

Might get some freaky results though.

already tried putting that in the update function. did nothing

Worked for me in Create after the editing mode code, but some scripted actors had issues with it.

could you give an exact point cause that's not working for me

Wasn't it actor.AIMode = 1 for sentry?

yes but AIMODE_SENTRY is a constant for aimodes and is equal to 1 so it also works just as well