MeshRender needs to be active before Start is called for static batching to work in editor

Unity Engine
1

I’m sure there might be hundreds of people that don’t know this: a gameobject marked as Batching Static must have the mesh renderer enabled prior to Unity calling the Start() functions in order for “Combined meshes” to be created.
If the mesh renderer is not enabled and active in the hierarchy at this time, no static batching meshes will be created in the Editor automagically.

My objects were active at the time of entering playmade, then during Awake() I set them inactive to be enabled later on. Then I was spending hours trying to figure out why no “Combined Meshes” were existing in the scene.

(It would be beneficial if this information was in the manual Unity - Manual: Draw call batching)

I tested this out with 5.3.6 and 2017.1.

Unrelated, but I also ran into issue when trying to do certain things In Awake, like using DynamicGI.SetEmissive.
Is this a lesson in avoiding using Awake() to do certain tasks?

2

If anyone stumbles upon this thread, I do wonder how you would go about objects that only need to be enabled later on during runtime, as stated:

Is there a solution for this?