I'm quite new to cocos2d and games programming, and am currently I am writing a game that is currently in Prototype stage. Everything is going okay, but I've realized a potentially big problem and I am not sure how to solve it.

I am using a singelton to store a bunch of arrays for everything, a global list of planets, a global list of troops, a global list of products, etc. And only now I'm realizing that all of this will be in memory and this is the wrong way to do it.

I am not storing files or anything on the disk just yet, with exception to a save/load state, which is a capture of everything.

My game makes use of a map which allows you to select a planet, then it will give you a breakdown of that planets troops and resources,

Lets use this scenario:

My game has 20 planets. On which you can have 20 troops.

Straight away that's an array of 400!

This does not add the NPC, which is another 10.

So, 20x10 = 200

So, now we have 600 all in arrays inside a Singelton.

This is obviously very bad, and very wrong. Especially as the game scales in the amount of data.

But I need to expose pretty much everything, especially on the map page, and I am not sure how else to do it.

I've been told that I can use a controller for the map page which has the information I need for each planet, and other controllers for other items I require global display for.

I've also thought about storing each planet's data in a save file, using initWithCoder however there could be a boatload of files on the user's device?

I really don't want to use a database, mainly because I would need to translate NSObjects and non-NSObjects like CGRects and CGPoints and Colors into/from SQL.

I am open to other ideas on how to store and read game data to prevent using a singelton to store everything, everywhere.

Thanks for your time.