How does setup-first-blocks work?

Question

if setup-first-blocks in params.dat is set to 60 and i add transactions before these 60 blocks are created or confirmed by the chain, does this add 60 'random' blocks or does it add these 60 blocks and then my transactions? 

If it does not add it before my transactions and it is random, what is the point or intent of these blocks?

Answer 1

Transactions are processed as usual within the setup period. However some behaviors are changed:

• The mining-diversity constraint is not applied.
• One admin can make high risk permissions changes (i.e. admin-consensus-* not applied).
• The mining-requires-peers setting is not applied.
• Mining proceeds independently of the mine-empty-rounds setting (so that the setup period does not continue indefinitely).

The purpose of the setup period is to make it easy to get a chain and network up and running.