Question Start method executed very late

Hello all,
I've got this weird issue where I Instantiate a prefab, get a reference to one of its components, and then call a function on the component. My problem is that the Start method on the component gets executed very late. So even though I'm instantiating the prefab, and then calling the methods on the component, the the methods I'm calling get executed before the Start method does. Obviously this is causing weird behaviour in my script. I've got a work around, but I'm wondering why this is happening in the first place?

 

Start is called before a monobehaviour's first update is called.

So say you're instantiating a prefab in Update. That prefab is created, you call the methods on it, then the player loop runs around to the next Update, before which the component's Start method is called (this is a super rough way to put it, consult with the timing diagram in the Unity docs).

In your case you want to use Awake.

 

Also, follow up post, but fun fact: You can reference prefabs by components that are on the root game object, rather than than the game object itself. You can then Instantiate() them with this reference and it will behave as expected (copy the game object and everything on it/that is a child of it), which returns a reference to the copied component, saving you a GetComponent<T>() call.

 

Ah right I see where I was going wrong! Also thats a great tip thankyou!