Are the leopard patterns bugged? (My observations presented)

[Totina]

I have been working on a leopard project for some time now and kept track of my progress openly in the Farm Logs section.
As everyone can see I have had only chestnut based horses during the majority of the time and it is now, when I have tried to bring a little more colour variations, that I have noticed a certain pattern which has proven to be very problematic.

This is either a bug with the leopard pattern on all non-chestnut based horses or the PATN genes are strongly connected to what base colour the horses have. It would be appreciated if any of the admins could confirm either of those possibilities as to why this is happening.

First of all, most of my horses with chestnut based colours end up as near leopard similar to this:
ℬℳ Magma Ice



When I decided to begin adding more than just chestnut based colours to my heard I bred one of my chestnut mares to a black blanket arabian and got a colt with a mix of both parents (and black based this time):



So far so good. I bred him a few times and kept two foals, both out of chestnut mares where one ended up as a chestnut based near leopard:



And the other a silver dapple with more white areas than his sire but still not close to what my chestnut horses have:
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/766255

Notice that I used the foal image for this one and only linked to the horse. This is because here is where the problems started.
Take a close look at that solid coloured head and that little white area on the lower parts of the mane and remember that pattern.

The new stallion with a solid coloured head was bred many times and since his dam was chestnut some of his foals would end up as chestnut as well, since I only had chestnut based mares in my herd at this point. All the chestnut based foals ended up as near leopards just like the rest of them and all the black based foals (I kept three of them) ended up with the solid coloured head (I did not keep any chestnut foals since I did not want more chestnut horses at this point, but if you look at his progeny list there is a chestnut based horse from another breeder).

The three foals had chestnut based dams and looked like this as newborn:



Notice the exact same pattern on the head and lower part of the mane.

If you follow all the offsprings throughout the generations you can clearly see that all black based horses end up with the same solid coloured heads, even when bred with chestnut horses that have white all the way up to their face. Even when two black based horses are bred to each other the foals that are chestnut show the full extent of white where none of the black based foals get any white above the line of the neck.

I recently bred such a chestnut based colt out of two black based, solid coloured head parents:



I have even tried different bloodlines of black based, with and without agouti and ended up with the same results.

Here I bred a cremello mare to a black caspian stallion and, as expected, ended up with a mixture of the two:


Looking at the next generation from this stallion I end up with the same results for chestnut vs. black based colours:




Even a colt bred from a brown blanket stallion ended up like this:
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/822711

And so does his offspings if you look at his progeny list.

I have a hard time believing that this is supposed to happen but if it is I think the admins need to explain it more in detail as to why non-chestnut based horses seem to not be able to get past solid coloured heads.

I did not post in the bugs section because I am not entirely sure if it is a bug or not. I definitely thinks it looks suspisiously buggy but perhaps I just missed something about how the pattern genes work in the game.

[BlackOak2]

This would definitely be a sorrowful fate if it's unobtainable for those black-bases. I will be subscribed to this for the present future.

[Questhaven]

I am having the same trouble all colors but black are leopard. Leopards won't go past neck. I have gotten snowflake on face but no more than that.

[larissar]

Since you took the time to write a well written post detailed with examples I took the time to read through the code in the renderer to recall how I have this setup and run a few tests.

When I was researching the genetics of the leopard complex I subscribed to a research group which had numerous articles about the genes behind this pattern. My subscription has since expired so I cannot reference the articles directly right now but I did leave comments through out code to remember why I made certain decisions.

It was found that black based horses tender to have less white coverage than red based horses. I've simulated this in the game as well. All black based horses have a harder time reaching full leopard pattern, BUT it is still possible to get a black based leopard appaloosa. I walked through the code myself and manually verified this before starting this post as I wanted to be sure I was answering correctly. It's hard, I'll give you that for sure, but not impossible. You just have to have the right combination of PATN (pattern) genes to get a high enough white coverage. Some pattern genes give you large boosts of white, like PATN-1, while others only give smaller amounts of white boost.
You most certainly will have to cross with multiple bloodlines to collect up all the patn genes, a closed breeding group is much more likely to just keep tossing around the same few patn genes and since the actual pattern your seeing in your horses is so similar I'd suspect that's what's happening in your herd. I would try to cross with other high white black based horses to increase your chance of collecting enough of the patn genes.

[Totina]

Thanks for letting us know, I guess I will just have to continue trying and add more genetic variation and hope for more white on the head and neck.
Before I created this thread I also took the time to go through other leopard breeders' horses in order to see if anyone else had a black based horse with white further up on the neck but I did not find any, which is why I suspected it could be a bug.

[BlackOak2]

Great! Just a little bit of affirmation one way or the other is all we needed. Thanks for... keeping it real... (bad pun, I know).
So genetics on the game aren't just close or mimic in most cases, they are quite possibly exact or as close to exact as a game can get.

[Baranduin Brewster]

Piece of advice an old Appaloosa/POA breeder friend of mine once told me after two failed attempts to get a leopard pattern out of my (black based) leopard mare with a (chestnut) leopard stallion.

You need to know if the mare and stallion has glass-eyed genes at least several generations back, and breed glass-eyed to glass-eyed since white on the head is indicated by the glass-eye.

Not sure how much stock, you can place in this (it was well before genetic tests became common)...but he did produce some stunning foals.

[BlackOak2]

Piece of advice an old Appaloosa/POA breeder friend of mine once told me after two failed attempts to get a leopard pattern out of my (black based) leopard mare with a (chestnut) leopard stallion.

You need to know if the mare and stallion has glass-eyed genes at least several generations back, and breed glass-eyed to glass-eyed since white on the head is indicated by the glass-eye.

Not sure how much stock, you can place in this (it was well before genetic tests became common)...but he did produce some stunning foals.

If that were added to the game (I don't know either way, but I would suppose not?), how would you tell a 'glass-eyed' horse on the game?

[Baranduin Brewster]

They have blue eyes (also called China-eyed, Wall-Eyed)

[Totina]

Blue eyes are not yet implemented in the game yet. The tiger eye gene can make a horse's eyes look a bit blue-green though but it is not connected to any appaloosa pattern.

Even though all the horses that are almost full leopard are chestnut based, I do like that most of them end up with extreme full-body sooty. When they grow older they almost look black. I did not specifically breed for the sooty gene, it just "accidentally" got stuck with my herd when I was selecting for more white.