Okay, this was a shower thought so if it's totally stupid, feel free to ignore me completely. On the other hand, if it's totally genius, please let me know.

So I was thinking about how colors and markings are part of the draw to some breeds (for example, it's why Knabs are one of my all-time favorite horse breeds), and I kinda thought it might be nice to be able to have some way to breed for color/markings. It doesn't have to be a super complex system of actual genetic chances and chromosomes or whatever. It would be more simple and player-friendly, and totally optional (because I know I lost my brain when HL started assigning graphics and colors to horses and I know there are a lot of skittish players on HP).

First thing would be the ability to turn Color Genetics on or off via profile settings. So if you don't like it and want the full freedom with your beasties, you have that choice.

Next, store animals would not have a color assigned to them. This gives players a chance to set their foundation generation to any color or markings they like, rather than having the choice taken away completely. It gives us the freedom to pick which colors and markings we'd like to breed with, as opposed to having to buy multiple animals from the store trying to find the perfect color/marking.

So you buy a pair of horses from the store and give the stallion a Leopard color, and the mare Snowcap (These colors could be a preset (based on the breed) drop-down option from the animal's profile page, or could be typed in for extra creativity (looking at those opal or gold unicorns out there)). Now, when you breed them, the game will randomly pick one of those colors to assign to the foal. Now you have a Snowcap foal.

If you continue with the line, and introduce store horses with other colors, like Few Spot and Snowflake, the game will pick a color from one of the horses in the foal's pedigree (only the generations immediately accessible from the foal, not any further back than three generations). If you only breed Leopard horses in a line, then you will only get Leopard colored foals, allowing players to breed for colors/markings they want.

I feel like this would add just a smidgen more depth to the game and since it would be optional, it's just there for the players who want to use it. No graphics or Flash animations or anything, just one little field filled in on the animal's page. Colored Breeds Club could have a lot of fun with this, maybe having spotlights for lined horses with rare colors.

I'm not sure how doable this would be, but I know I would immensely enjoy using it 
¯_(ツ)_/¯

*bumps and runs*

HP has never been genetic-based, it's just been about points. Although this is simple stuff, I don't see the point because you could just as easily type in the same color over and over and if you use personalized pics, then just use black horses all the time, for example. I feel like we sorta already have this and there's no need for new coding and this eliminates, or at least reduces, possible future glitches (because we know there are other updates to come).

That said, it is still a cool idea and if anything, I'd rather see color genetics fully implemented rather than just a simplified version. I think that if HP ever gets a big revamp and cool new features added in, I'd like enough time to train all my lines until retirement and then start them up again when the coding is full ready and glitch-free. This feature could totally be included, but it would be nice if it was completely optional.

As though this idea is nice, I still feel like it would take away from freedom. Even with the ability to turn it on and off. Like yes that would be nice, but im not so sure some of care for that aspect. I like having the entire freedom to do it and select graphics. And that would also take away from artist with premades. Instead of having multiple people needing a basic warmblood now we all fight for a say a "bay" vs a "chesnut" or "grey". Or even having fun with it. I enjoy that HP doesnt incorperate genetics and lets a player choose. And if a player is so intuned with it why not do it solely on their own with a random selector and choice. It wouldnt require the game to change at all, plus those with genetic knowlege can still do it. Its been a topic before and I dont see it being any benficial to HP. 

https://horsephenomena.com/viewpost.php?id=89802

Wow I totally forgot about that thread. And yea, I have to agree with Peike that, if we've gone this long without caring about genetics, we can keep on going. I personally don't even give my horses a color lol I just slap a default graphic on them, with the exception of my private Finnhorse lines.

And I come from the perspective of a graphic artist. I like slapping premades in and not having to worry about colors. 

Also if you really wanna get into genetics just add it to the coat color "aa/Ee" and do the list of what percentage youd get, then go from there. 

SpiffyHorse has horse coat genetics and I loved that about the game. It was a strong choice that added complexity, realism, challenge, and fun to an old school, traditional format of sim game. 

I, for one, love the limitation color coats add. Another layer of personalization that could affect lines and themes. 

But I understand it could be difficult to code, even Monnie’s cool idea, and there are other updates that have been in the pipeline for awhile. 

I thought hp evolutions was gonna have that option of color genetics?

I like hp the way it is...i dont ever do colors in the boxes either lol

Sooooo from a Belgian breeder....not necessary lol. But even my other breeds, I wouldn’t want it. I could also see it negatively effecting premade auctions if too many people get intro it, and I know a lot of graphic artists don’t have time for customs. I personally like the simplicity of not having genetics on here.

Honestly, I am not sure how I feel about this idea really; a lot of the horses that we breed are typically just one main color that have a few off-side variations with breedings {like Friesians are typically jet black but they can be bred to be a dark-brown or bay-black or Holsteiners can be bred to be black or bay but are typically snow whites} and other breeds just have one solid color like Belgians/Finnhorses are just Flaxen or sorrels so they wouldn't really fit into this option.

Secondly, Famous Shamus and Peike make a good point about graphics hindering; while having different markings and designs are nice, you also have to keep in mind the stock image availability. There are only a certain number of sites that even allow SIMS to use their photos which is steeply declining, so animals may not have a picture that many are looking for. For example, before I even decided to make my Holsteiners white/gray, I wanted to make them black or chestnut, but I could not find stock images that were allowed on SIMS for those colors, but I could on white/gray. And I notice this with a lot of breeds where you can only find certain colors. So in order to make that work, we'd have to implement horse sketches of every color/marking so we could have a picture than the black default horse or dog.

Thirdly, I do appreciate that this is optional and not a forced suggestion, but I also agree with Tana and a few others on the glitching. We have had show and boarding glitches recently without much changes to them, it could be possible a glitch could appear where the option switch is disabled so you're unwantedly getting the color generator. Personally, I actually kinda like that we have no color demands set on the horses; especially since as of late I've not been as active as I would like on HP, it's nice how as long as my baby has a good pedigree lineage and decent points, I can throw one up for sale as soon as its born if I wanted. I don't have to worry about color/marking demands like on HL, whose palette/genetics were super super limited. On there, horses were mainly bought by looks so you had to try and breed to get a certain color, which was a lot of work and 80% of the time it would throw a color not in demand or the color demands would change so quickly it was hard to keep a steady business. That is simply not a stress I want to go back to.

I would say, IMHO, the only way I could see this possibly useful is as like another game on HP. You could call it "What's My Genetics?" or "Guess My Line" or something like that; it would spin the generator and you would see a horse like the Snowcap you said and you could guess what the sire/dam was to make that marking. That would be a kinda fun and educational way to earn HPD, but wouldn't take away from the actual gameplay of what we have now.

These are just my two cents.

I come from a game that has realistic genetics for horses and honestly it's a headache. You get some breeds that have every color in the book and it gets complicaed after a while. I understand it would be optional, but one of the reasons I came back to HP was literally how simple it was. 

I do not support. :)

I would rather keep HP the way it is and maybe just jump on the HPE bandwagon if it ever get to actually come out.

I'm a nut for color genetics and would love to see it implemented as an aspect of breeding programs but also agree that it could make getting ahold of appropriate stock to make graphics a bit harder. 

There are quite a few games that have this added into them, however I don't think HP would benefit from this. A large part of this game (for me) has been about the total freedom. Even though I do try to remain fairly realistic (sorry, I like real-ish things) I love seeing people's creativity! I feel like doing this would really nail the coffin shut on premades as it seems to me that so many of my favorite artists on HP LOVE having their creativity unfiltered!

I really like color genetics, but not for HP.

I think HP is designed around a simple points-based concept, and because of that, there are just some limitatons on more complex features without fundamentally changing the goals of the game.

However, HP2/HP: Evolutions/Equicana is based around the idea of genetics and different discipines and is meant to be more of a complex style of game. It's currently in paused development after having a couple of programmers quit the project (and one delete the entire codebase without telling me). It's definitely still something I have plans and ideas for, but it's not something I am currently working on. It is on my goals list for the year, though, to resume work on it!

As far as them being optional, I think that adds programming hurdles that aren't necessary.