Is it possible to have an "Object Reference Library" be derived by a static class?

So I'm kinda new to the programming side of Unity considering i started out as an artist. There are things that i have learned that are best practices and one of these things is referencing Objects and GameObjects in your scene. Many Unity forum posts say that a direct public reference to Game objects and their components set in the inspector are always better than finding references in Start() or in Update(). but lets say i wanted to have all my references readily available to use throughout my whole scene, is it possible to make a "library" of public object references that is simply just that, a list of references. then use that "library" or inherit from that library with lets say a static GameManager class so that all other classes in the scene can just access that static class and have all the references and global methods at their disposal?

If this is impossible or not the best way, what is the best and cleanest way to reference GameObjects, Objects and components for the whole scene without having to make a messy web of references between all scripts?

Thanks for any help on the subject! :3

 

I don't see harm in looking up a few references in Start() or even in Update. Simply cache these values into a local, private variable so that you don't need to look up references more than once. I think this is much better than trying to inherit from a library of all possible references, many of which you don't care about.

 

huh? that might hold for GetComponent in Update because getting the same thing programmatically every frame when it doesn't change is not a great expenditure of processing time; but the work around for that would be to move the GetComponent to the Start/Awake functions...

 

They're not always better, though more often than not they are. Right tool for the right job. Direct references are often the right tool; sometimes you do need the script to do a little work to find the reference.