hi, just wondering if anyone knows a way to change the gear the minuteman spawn with when you use the flare as i dress all my settlers in vault suits i like to keep everyone matching.

I don't think those Minutemen can be changed, as they're temporary npcs and as such, any changes to their inventory will cease to exist once they are removed from the game.

When the GECK comes out though, it will be quite easy to do, if the inventory formatting is the same as the NV GECK.

Just locate the appropriate NPC template (in this case Minuteman) and edit their inventory to have Vault Suits instead of whatever they have.