Java: "static class" or pass references around?
I'm part of a team designing the server for a client/server model naval warfare video game (University course). We have a fairly concrete (well, I think) system design, but there is one aspect that bothers me.

The basic layout of the system is:

    Server [thread] (handles incoming connections)
    |
    Game [thread] (deals with game events in it's work queue and sending messages to clients)
    |--Environment (holds environment variables, deals with collision)
    |--Client(s) [thread] (handles incoming messages from client sockets and adds events to the Game's work queue)
        |--Ship (holds game data, eg: hit points, fire power, etc)
        |--Parser (parses client messages and creates game event objects)
    |--GameEvent (event objects held in a queue that can preform appropriate work and send appropriate responses to clients)

Now, my issue, is that both Client and GameEvent (and probably Environment, once we get to it) need a reference to the Game object that they belong to.

Clients need to add GameEvent's to the Game's work queue.

GameEvent's need to access other game data (Client's Ship, Environment).

Is there a better/more conventional method instead of having these objects store a local reference to their Game? What about declaring all of Game's methods as static? We only need to handle one game at a time, so there wouldn't ever be more than one instance of Game...

I'm sure there is a convention for a system with one central object that has many helper objects that need to reference it.

Java: "static class" or pass references around?
===

I'm part of a team designing the server for a client/server model naval warfare video game (University course). We have a fairly concrete (well, I think) system design, but there is one aspect that bothers me.

The basic layout of the system is:

    Server [thread] (handles incoming connections)
    |
    Game [thread] (deals with game events in it's work queue and sending messages to clients)
    |--Environment (holds environment variables, deals with collision)
    |--Client(s) [thread] (handles incoming messages from client sockets and adds events to the Game's work queue)
        |--Ship (holds game data, eg: hit points, fire power, etc)
        |--Parser (parses client messages and creates game event objects)
    |--GameEvent (event objects held in a queue that can preform appropriate work and send appropriate responses to clients)

Now, my issue, is that both Client and GameEvent (and probably Environment, once we get to it) need a reference to the Game object that they belong to.

Clients need to add GameEvent's to the Game's work queue.

GameEvent's need to access other game data (Client's Ship, Environment).

Is there a better/more conventional method instead of having these objects store a local reference to their Game? What about declaring all of Game's methods as static? We only need to handle one game at a time, so there wouldn't ever be more than one instance of Game...

I'm sure there is a convention for a system with one central object that has many helper objects that need to reference it.
