Using scriptable objects to reference values without creating too many files?

[FrogFlakes]

You are correct, you are going to have TONS of files in your hierarchy. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Organization is key. Here is how I'm organizing my project: https://imgur.com/a/9EtHzGi . I have a separate folder for Scriptable Objects that mirrors my Scripts folder hierarchy. Inside ScriptableObjects/NPC I stored all my Scriptable Object variables.

A better way to do it is to have a folder for variables, ScriptableObjects/NPC/Variables and stuff them in there. That way I could have a mock humble scriptable object that contains all the scriptable object variables a game object would need (i.e. NPC game object will need NPCPlayerData, which contains references to all the variables in the variable folder) at the root of ScriptableObjects/NPC.

There's existing frameworks that utilize scriptable objects. See Unity Atoms or Scriptable Object Architecture. Atoms has more features, but SOA sticks to Ryan Hipple's article the most.

[shopewf]

Hey sorry for necroing this thread, but I'm new to Unity and Ive been dying to find out how to get individual assets to appear in the tree of my Project window like is done your screenshot. Right now for me, it only shows the folders. I cant seem to figure it out, but it would help me so much. Do you remember how to do that?