Is there a way to get max to open a specific scene whenever it starts up? Failing that, how would I go about making a script to do it for me? I am not finding a way to tell maxscript to open a file.
Create a scene called maxstart.max and save into maxroot\scenes. You could always just save the materials into your library, they may not load on startup, but you'll still have access to them without having to remake.