Ok.. by default in single player campaign and on D2 servers.. the start date for early era is 2263.. this refers to year 0
if you go into your C drive you can go to the game folder following this path and open the Time.gf file in notepad
C:\Program Files\Taldren Software Inc\Starfleet Command Orion Pirates\MetaAssets\ServerProfiles\SinglePlayer\Time.gf
when you open this file you will find :
[Clock/StartingDate]
BaseYear = 2263
0 = 0
1 = 10
2 = 20
3 = 40
now what this means is the following :
0 is early era.. or year 2263
1 is mid era or year 2273
2 is late era or year 2283
3 is Advanced era or year 2303
now these years do not correspond with missle release dates as missle release dates are hardcoded, but i will post back later about those...
now as far as ships first available..
you can get the utility Shipedit OP : located here :
http://www.sfcx.org/downloads/mirrors/Pestalence/Shipedit.exeyou will have to go into
C:\Program Files\EagleEye Software Group\ShipEdit
and find Shipedit OP.exe and make a shortcut on your desktop to it..
then you can open it and point to the shiplist.txt located in
C:\Program Files\Taldren Software Inc\Starfleet Command Orion Pirates\Assets\Specs
you can look at the Year Available box...
it will list First and Last years abvailable..
if the year first available is negative.. such as -27.. then that is 2263 - 27 = 2236 which is early era.. Year last available is the last year the server or game will produce the ship ...
now in the Time.gf file you can control how many years between eras such as is you want Early era to end 15 game years after start (if starting in early era) then you change
1= 15
this will denote to the game to start mid era in 2278 instead of 2273
in Shipedit OP, you can adjust year First Available for ships and Year last available for ships to suit your needs
also, when installing Shipedit OP.. it will have to install Shipedit which was designed for SFC 2EAW and SFC 1... It is not recommended to edit ships for OP in Shipedit.. just Shipedit OP.. however you can load the shiplist in Shipedit so that you can use the Boxed to describe the settings allowable for the game since Shipedit OP does not have the box descriptions.. as such, when it installs, shipedit shortcut will be installed to your desktop automatically.. Shipedit Op will install after Shipedit finishes and then you will have to create a shortcut on your desktop.. that is if you get it now.. if you wait until tomorrow.. I will have an updated installer which will create both shortcuts for you...
I hope that this helps.