Geldings, additional courses, new 'personality'

[Malakai20]

As a possible way to make geldings more appealing (once added), perhaps the following could be implemented:

1) Stallions have a 20% training and competition penalty. Mares have a 15% training and competition penalty. Geldings and sterilised mares have no penalties.
HOWEVER
A new course is implemented: riding ability (which does not affect geldings or sterilised mares). Riding ability reduces the training/showing penalty in stallions and mares (and is affected by who rides the horse; i.e., when jockeys are implemented, the jockeys riding ability is taken into account, not the owner's.) For example, at riding ability level 1, mares have a 10% training penalty, a 15% penalty in shows; stallions have a 15% training penalty and a 20% competition penalty. The training penalty goes down by 5% each level. Once the training penalty has hit zero, then the competition penalty goes down by 5% per level.

Riding ability does not grant bonuses; it just reduces the penalty.

2a) Stallions being ridden by handlers without a maxed stallion handling and riding ability skill have a small chance (determined by the level of stallion handling and riding ability) of their stallion 'getting loose' or misbehaving at a show and impregnating a mare there. (This does present a risk of causing negative feelings and fighting among players, 2b) would likely be a better idea, despite being less realistic)

3) A base personality can also be implemented, one that affects how the horse acts at shows, how easy they are to train, etc and has a positive and negative aspect to it. For example, a personality trait such as 'restless': these horses are more likely to kick, as such, horses in the paddock with them or horses at a show might be injured by this horse; this horse might also kick the walls of its stall and might injure itself - however, this horse has a lot of energy and is either fast or has a lot of stamina. Personality can be determined via the environment - the personalities of the other horses the foal is with, whether the foal was raised by itself or in a group, whether there was a fully grown horse in the area, if the foal was with its mother and whether the foal was in a stall or in a paddock. The personality is determined by, maybe 6 months? The personality can be affected, but not changed, by temperament. E.g. a bombproof, restless horse would be less likely to kick than a highly strung, restless horse.

4) Once ribbons are added, if one puts puts a red ribbon in the tail of a horse likely to kick (with a personality such as aggressive or restless) or a yellow one in a stallion, it reduces the chance of a negative incident happening at a show (due to people avoiding/respecting the horse's space).

On a scale of 1 'this is as bad an idea as putting pineapple on pizza' to 10 'this is the best idea since pizza', what do you think?

Edit I:

2b) Stallions have a 5% chance of getting a 10% penalty at a show, as the rider's riding ability skill goes up, the penalty decreases to, eventually 1% and no lower; as the stallion handling ability is increased, the chance of getting the penalty decreases until it is, eventually, 0,2% and no lower.

Mares have a 5% chance of getting a 10% penalty, which goes down to a 1% chance of getting a 2% penalty; however,once riding ability is maxed, mares will have a 0,1% chance of getting an 10% bonus.

Geldings and sterilised mares both have a 2% chance of getting a 5% penalty BUT they also have a 2% chance of getting a 5% bonus. Geldings' and sterilised mares' bonuses do not increase nor decrease with riding ability.

5) If a stallion or mare is sterilised too late in life (say, 10 years old) there is a 5% chance the sterilisation will have no affect on their behaviour.

Tell me if you think these bonuses and penalties are too little or too much and what you think I should change it to.

Edit II:

BlackOak2 has suggested voting to decide:

1) Altering (sterilized mares & geldings) with benefits for them (as has been discussed, or with some sort of benefits herein unnamed).

2) Altering without benefits (just the ability to not have offspring).

3) No altering, leave the game unchanged.

4) Abstain

This with the understanding that nothing has been decided and we will still be at the final decision of our admins.

Thus far, the number of votes are:

1) 5

2) 2

3) 0

Abstain: 0

[Tjigra]

Pineapple on a pizza is a good idea
But I don't like the idea of someone else entering a misbehaved horse or stallion in a show, and me having a chance of consequences. This is something we don't have any control over, so I vote against it.
I could live with the idea of show penalty for stallions and mares when geldings come around. But we don't have game-wide seasons here, so everyone will just enter their mares in shows when they have autumn or winter, I suppose.

[BlackOak2]

I got a kick out of reading that!

I like pineapple on pizza as well though, so that made me laugh some more.

I like have a penalty on stallions versus geldings, and I think it should be added to mare's as well, as mare's have one, but sterilized mares do not.
I'm not a fan of attaching it to seasons though, because some horses do better in certain seasons while others do worse, so just laying it out over all of one type isn't realistic to me.

Although I'm not particularly interested in putting it on training, I'd prefer to just keep it on competitions.
I do like the jockey penalty, the better the jockey skill is, the less penalty there will be. I also like the no bonus. That there isn't any positive, it's just less negative.

I also like the stallion handling penalty, that stallions (which can be notoriously hard to handle) owned or ridden by jockey's or owners are also affected in competitions by the stallion handling skill.
With all those skill penalties added together, it may allow a mare to compete very competitively with a stallion with little or no penalty reductions.
It could go so far as being a seriously level playing field.
Although... I would still like to see geldings and sterilized mares have a slight advantage over their counterparts, regardless of the penalty scores. Otherwise, the only reason to geld or sterilize is to prevent offspring and I'd really like to see at least one other advantage to it.

All in all, I'm one of those looking forward to gelds/steriles (and now jockey skills!).

[Malakai20]

Pineapple on a pizza is a good idea

I got a kick out of reading that!

I like pineapple on pizza as well though, so that made me laugh some more.

Hah! You must be joking! Pineapple on pizza is horrid agree to disagree, I suppose

Anyway, I just wanted to notify you that I made some changes based on what you both said, if you would mind looking it over and giving your opinions? I'm not too sure if I did the bonuses and penalties right.

[BlackOak2]

Let me first say, that I still like much of this and if this were added without change, I could easily live with it.
So now let me break down a little more and give my opinions mashed out on each part.

As a possible way to make geldings more appealing (once added), perhaps the following could be implemented:

1) Stallions have a 20% training and competition penalty. Mares have a 15% training and competition penalty. Geldings and sterilised mares have no penalties.

I actually like this base penalty scoring with no skills learned. This will certainly help (especially) our newbies to get that hard-needed boost up when first starting (and also restarting). By purchasing a horse that cannot breed, it enables us (breeders) to very easily send out our extras with closed bloodlines to those that may need that hand. Plus, competition barns may find sending out older competition horses a lot easier to let go. Although loosing the ability to breed potentially great competition stock, the benefits of these are a lot stronger.
In my mind, I want to say 'Leave the breeding to the breeding farms and the competing to the competition stables'.

HOWEVER
A new course is implemented: riding ability (which does not affect geldings or sterilised mares). Riding ability reduces the training/showing penalty in stallions and mares (and is affected by who rides the horse; i.e., when jockeys are implemented, the jockeys riding ability is taken into account, not the owner's.) For example, at riding ability level 1, mares have a 10% training penalty, a 15% penalty in shows; stallions have a 15% training penalty and a 20% competition penalty. The training penalty goes down by 5% each level. Once the training penalty has hit zero, then the competition penalty goes down by 5% per level.

Riding ability does not grant bonuses; it just reduces the penalty.

I like this part as well. Having less training penalty in my opinion is appropriate and the competition penalty (since the horse would be in a different environment) more. I also like the fact that training penalties would be taken away first, then the competition penalties would start to go once the training penalties disappear. Again, I think this is the way it would (or should) work out in real life. I also like the 5% decrease at each level. Although that does seem like a lot, training and competing are relatively easy in the whole scheme of things and shouldn't slow us down that much for training. As it is, starting at a 15% penalty for training a stallion, certainly will slow us down quite a bit, so getting rid of that penalty at a 'quick' rate would be beneficial as well.
As a side note, I could even suggest that the competition penalty disappears a little slower, depending on how many levels of riding skills we would have. That said, I would NOT change the training decrease percentage. I think that's appropriate. One doesn't need to be an expert rider to train a stallion. It helps, but it's not a necessity.

2a) Stallions being ridden by handlers without a maxed stallion handling and riding ability skill have a small chance (determined by the level of stallion handling and riding ability) of their stallion 'getting loose' or misbehaving at a show and impregnating a mare there. (This does present a risk of causing negative feelings and fighting among players, 2b) would likely be a better idea, despite being less realistic)

I have mixed feelings still on this one. This would certainly encourage people to make stallion only, mare only and gelded/sterilized only shows, and also encourage people to enter certain types if they want to avoid them. So I like it for this fact.
Plus, if you see there's a potential great partner, you could get a freebie foal! Which I find hilarious. And if only just for that, I'd agree!
And actually, I think it's realistic enough. Really the only reason why this doesn't happen now in real life are because mare's aren't just automatically in heat at the drop of a hat and we really do keep decent control of our horses.
If... IF this were to be implemented, I'd suggest (at least for myself), that the chance be quite slim, even with little or no stallion handling skills learned. But if it does happen, then all the mares able to conceive in that competition would have a 50/50 chance of getting pregnant. Although this may seem quite a bit less realistic then just one or two conceiving, the desire to prevent this from happening (especially for those with closed bloodlines), will encourage people to take notice.
That and I'd STILL get a kick out of it! Maybe that makes me a little sadistic?
I like this idea, I'm just unsure of it just yet. I'd like it to be fleshed out quite a bit more so I can understand all of it before it would (might) be implemented.
I certainly think that if we implement something like this, we add to it a disqualification for that competition a 'no score' which equates to last place.

3) A base personality can also be implemented, one that affects how the horse acts at shows, how easy they are to train, etc and has a positive and negative aspect to it. For example, a personality trait such as 'restless': these horses are more likely to kick, as such, horses in the paddock with them or horses at a show might be injured by this horse; this horse might also kick the walls of its stall and might injure itself - however, this horse has a lot of energy and is either fast or has a lot of stamina. Personality can be determined via the environment - the personalities of the other horses the foal is with, whether the foal was raised by itself or in a group, whether there was a fully grown horse in the area, if the foal was with its mother and whether the foal was in a stall or in a paddock. The personality is determined by, maybe 6 months? The personality can be affected, but not changed, by temperament. E.g. a bombproof, restless horse would be less likely to kick than a highly strung, restless horse.

I do like this thought.
I'm not sure I like how it's personality develops, but I do think I like when it develops. As in, just like the foal coat blows at 1, personality stays hidden until 6 months.
I think I'd prefer it to be born with a personality, after all, breeds are developed with a type of personality. For instance, we'd be hard pressed to find a draft breed that's really 'restless'. I also like that it's kind of linked to temperament as well. What comes to mind is this: temperament can be easily changed in a horse that's a bit restless among high strung and spirited; or if a horse is laid back, temperament would be very hard to change no matter what it's born at.
But this could be a lot more intricate and attached to a lot more areas. So although I like this thought, I'm not sure I'd like it implemented unless it was either very limited, or wasn't implemented until quite a ways further down the line.
What I do like about it, is that it can affect training with different results. So the things I like it connected to is temperament, training, maybe competition scoring... other then that, I'm undecided.

4) Once ribbons are added, if one puts puts a red ribbon in the tail of a horse likely to kick (with a personality such as aggressive or restless) or a yellow one in a stallion, it reduces the chance of a negative incident happening at a show (due to people avoiding/respecting the horse's space).

I was always a fan of adding tack-wear that aids or dissuades horses in games. But all the games I ever played added traits that weren't realistic. Like a hat that added strength.
So I would like to see tack that does aid, dissuade certain horse issues at some point. For instance, a martingale that could help control a stallion in certain competitions, or blinkers that may help a restless horse focus during racing.
Such things are very realistic and I do look forward to maybe our admin one day implementing them.

Edit:

2b) Stallions have a 5% chance of getting a 10% penalty at a show, as the rider's riding ability skill goes up, the penalty decreases to, eventually 1% and no lower; as the stallion handling ability is increased, the chance of getting the penalty decreases until it is, eventually, 0,2% and no lower.

I still like penalties for breeding-able horses. I'm assuming this is on top of the basic penalty they already have (if the skills for handling and riding aren't maxed). I also like the fact that the chance never goes away and that there is a minimum percentage as well. Although I'm kind of thinking that the 0.2% minimum penalty should be a little higher, after all, this is a stallion. I'd say 1%... but in the grand scheme of scoring, 0.2% might be quite a large percentage when all the math is done.
Overall, I agree and think this would be a good addition.

Mares have a 5% chance of getting a 10% penalty, which goes down to a 1% chance of getting a 2% penalty; however,once riding ability is maxed, mares will have a 0,1% chance of getting an 10% bonus.

On this, I'm not so sure though. Mares are much easier to handle. Although I agree with the penalty and chance of this, on top of the handling and riding skills (in this case I assume broodmare handling and not stallion handling), and I agree that it should be less then the stallions, I'm just not sure about the amount of percentage.
I think the bonus (if nothing else is changed), should be only 5% though. Mares may have a great day, but a 10% bonus I think is a little overkill. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe to match a stallion's performance, with all the math done, a 10% bonus is needed.
Here's my short reasoning: On a mare's best day, she should be able to perform against a stallion evenly on his average day, or be able to beat him out, when they are evenly matched. This with taking into account the differences naturally occurring between a mare and a stallion.
So with my reasoning, is 10% bonus too much? Just enough? I don't know.

Geldings and sterilised mares both have a 2% chance of getting a 5% penalty BUT they also have a 2% chance of getting a 5% bonus. Geldings' and sterilised mares' bonuses do not increase nor decrease with riding ability.

Overall, I'm now not sure where the geld/sterile set is after everything has been skilled to the max. Would the breedable's now match the unbreedables? If they would, I would certainly say that the benefits for unbreedables has been swept away, except for the sole purpose of not having additional offspring.
I like the solid percentage chance of getting a penalty or a bonus. This offers the realistic chance of having a good day versus a bad day, but doesn't change the performance enough to really create a huge loss or a huge win.
I still say that having and competing an unbreedable should have a slight, an apparent and a usable advantage over a stallion or a mare on their best day. Though there are many other factors that come into play in competing, in my opinion, if the field is quite even, if every horse is evenly matched and performs at the best of their ability, the placements should go: Gelding, Stallion, Sterilized, Mare. Of course, that's essentially taking the same horse with different sexes.
For me that would be the appropriate outcome.
I don't know if after all the skill are done, if that's what we would have. I would like it to be that way, though. I think that would be fair, in my opinion.

5) If a stallion or mare is sterilised too late in life (say, 10 years old) there is a 5% chance the sterilisation will have no affect on their behaviour.

Tell me if you think these bonuses and penalties are too little or too much and what you think I should change it to.

I'm okay with this, although I think in real life, that range-age is like 8 years. But I don't know or recall enough to say for certain.
I don't think it should have an affect on a change to the unbreedable bonuses (what they may be), what I mean is, even if changed late in life, the bonuses earned afterward, shouldn't be changed because of the late change (for instance: if there is a 10% increase to competing, if gelded late, it should still offer 10% increase in competing).
I'm fine with it not changing the behavior though. For instance, if we want to take on the bonus for unbreedable, but keep the penalty during competing as if it was still a stallion. So there would still be a chance for: 'Stallions have a 5% chance of getting a 10% penalty at a show, as the rider's riding ability skill goes up, the penalty decreases to, eventually 1% and no lower; as the stallion handling ability is increased, the chance of getting the penalty decreases until it is, eventually, 0,2% and no lower.', on top of the bonus for unbreadable, if changed too late in life.
I'm fine with that and think that this is indeed, realistic.

So that's my long-drawn-out two cents!

Overall, again, I still like these and am looking forward to something added along these lines in the future.

[Tjigra]

Having read what was said probably not too carefully, I'd say it would make better sense for me if the penalty for shows would be expressed as a bigger fluctuations in results. Being a stallion and thus difficult to handle doesn't take away from horse's ability, it only takes away from the predictability of being able to perform to the best of it's ability. So how I see it, if we calculate the best score the horse is able to achieve at its skillset and training level, then a gelding would perform withing 10% of it all the time, mare within 20% and stallion within 30% - as in a stallion is still able to do everything right and outperform everyone, but if a bad mood hits, he'd ruin his result rather spectacularly (all the numbers are just example, I haven't done any math on it).
My "cup of tea" is showjumping in real life (as a spectator, not a rider), and many of the world's best showjumpers are stallions. There are plenty of geldings (and not that many mares), but the best of the best are very often stallions, and many of them are as much "clear round machines" as any gelding out there. So I don't think it's fair to stallions to define that they have to be better to be as good as geldings all the time - just to add in a chance to "throw a tantrum" and ruin the results occasionally (same goes for mares).

[BlackOak2]

Having read what was said probably not too carefully, I'd say it would make better sense for me if the penalty for shows would be expressed as a bigger fluctuations in results. Being a stallion and thus difficult to handle doesn't take away from horse's ability, it only takes away from the predictability of being able to perform to the best of it's ability. So how I see it, if we calculate the best score the horse is able to achieve at its skillset and training level, then a gelding would perform withing 10% of it all the time, mare within 20% and stallion within 30% - as in a stallion is still able to do everything right and outperform everyone, but if a bad mood hits, he'd ruin his result rather spectacularly (all the numbers are just example, I haven't done any math on it).
My "cup of tea" is showjumping in real life (as a spectator, not a rider), and many of the world's best showjumpers are stallions. There are plenty of geldings (and not that many mares), but the best of the best are very often stallions, and many of them are as much "clear round machines" as any gelding out there. So I don't think it's fair to stallions to define that they have to be better to be as good as geldings all the time - just to add in a chance to "throw a tantrum" and ruin the results occasionally (same goes for mares).

I agree that this is most likely the way it is in real life.
The difference I see between making a game and real life is that real life is quite chaotic. In my opinion designing something like chaos into the game, while handling genetics and working from a set type of mathematics might be too much to figure out how to program.
Geldings may not be better then any stallion any given day. But what I see placements (when I gave that example), is just beating any of them out at optimum. I suppose the better example is to offer it in the form of a race: If the gelding at optimum, on his best day, comes in first, then the stallion, at optimum on his best day comes in second by a nose, the sterilized mare, at optimum on her best day, comes in behind by maybe half a neck and the breedable mare, at optimum on her best day behind that by just a nose. But this is assuming the HGP and conformation and genes are all exactly the same as well as type, temperament, feed... so on. Exact clones of one... so that the only difference between any of them is the fact that one is a gelding, one is a stallion, one is a sterilized and one is a regular mare.
How often have we been able to produce an exact copy?

However, that being said, I do understand what you're saying. The stallion should always be the best, because it's the strongest. And in certain ways, I do agree.
The reason I suggest giving both geldings and sterilized perhaps just a small bonus is to offer a real and solid reason to not only alter the horses but also purchase them.

Maybe if you do feel so negatively about having the altered horses being perhaps just a slight bit better on their best day (other then the fact that they can't breed), is to have the top end (highest HGP and highest abilities), suffer from a 2% permanent reduction (I offered a random number). It's no longer breedable, the breeding report and HGP are negligible at that point and no longer matter. Perhaps they just vanish. The horse you have now, after altering, is just what you make it into.

So are you suggesting that in lieu of offering the altered horses a bonus benefit, that we suggest an upgrade in the stallion and mare chance of penalty during shows? Regardless of being all skilled out, that the chance of penalty needs to be higher?
Perhaps I like this idea better then.

[Tjigra]

So are you suggesting that in lieu of offering the altered horses a bonus benefit, that we suggest an upgrade in the stallion and mare chance of penalty during shows? Regardless of being all skilled out, that the chance of penalty needs to be higher?

I suppose.
What I mean is, if a horse's result is close to its maximum ability most of the time, it makes for a better grinder, better win %, earlier champion - the horse can be relied on winning its best level most of the events it is entered. You don't risk your entry fee much - you have a solid chance to get the winnings home.
If the horse's result can be all over the place - you risk more, because the horse can hit the penalty in that expensive entry high purse show you really wanted to win, and make a sterling performance in a cheap 50$ winnings show you didn't care about much. You have to work harder and spend more money to champ this horse, even though it's results are probably higher than the first one's, but it just doesn't deliver all the time, and there is a risk of not delivering when you really need it.
As I see it, we'd see a lot of nice gelded grinders this way, and some high win % high level champion geldings, but the record holders will still probably be stallions, because you want your best stock to have all the attributes for replicating their abilities in the next generation.

[BlackOak2]

So are you suggesting that in lieu of offering the altered horses a bonus benefit, that we suggest an upgrade in the stallion and mare chance of penalty during shows? Regardless of being all skilled out, that the chance of penalty needs to be higher?

I suppose.
What I mean is, if a horse's result is close to its maximum ability most of the time, it makes for a better grinder, better win %, earlier champion - the horse can be relied on winning its best level most of the events it is entered. You don't risk your entry fee much - you have a solid chance to get the winnings home.
If the horse's result can be all over the place - you risk more, because the horse can hit the penalty in that expensive entry high purse show you really wanted to win, and make a sterling performance in a cheap 50$ winnings show you didn't care about much. You have to work harder and spend more money to champ this horse, even though it's results are probably higher than the first one's, but it just doesn't deliver all the time, and there is a risk of not delivering when you really need it.
As I see it, we'd see a lot of nice gelded grinders this way, and some high win % high level champion geldings, but the record holders will still probably be stallions, because you want your best stock to have all the attributes for replicating their abilities in the next generation.

I like this.
So I agree with the higher chance percentage of penalty.
Then what we need to decide on, is what would be fair and correct for a penalty.

Let's say a stallion, out of 100 successful competition entries, how many should be spectacular failures? How many of these 100 competitions should he fail in pulling the first place he should have?
50 would be way too high in my opinion (although perhaps this is appropriate if none of the skills were learned).
20 is way too low, also in my opinion (doesn't offer enough risk).
30 seems to be better, but I don't like that number (70 wins is just too regular for me, although I like this for my own horse! Hah!).
I think 35 is a better number. Out of 100 competitions, the stallion should fail 35 times. Even when all the skills have been maxed out. That seems to put me right on the edge of... well this horse just sucks... and just so far as... this horse appears to be dependable enough. So that anything better then that I would enjoy and anything worse, I'd likely geld and be done with it. Plus, it would put the winning percentage at 65%, which in most cases is an acceptable winning percentage (I go on 70% as my cutoff, but that makes an exceptional competitor).

Then I would place mares at 25% at the minimum risk and 30 at the maximum.
And to start out (with no skills learned) a starting risk of 40 I think would be acceptable. Mare's are inherently just a little less risky then a stallion, after all.

[Abbih]

As a possible way to make geldings more appealing (once added), perhaps the following could be implemented:

1) Stallions have a 20% training and competition penalty. Mares have a 15% training and competition penalty. Geldings and sterilised mares have no penalties.
HOWEVER
A new course is implemented: riding ability (which does not affect geldings or sterilised mares). Riding ability reduces the training/showing penalty in stallions and mares (and is affected by who rides the horse; i.e., when jockeys are implemented, the jockeys riding ability is taken into account, not the owner's.) For example, at riding ability level 1, mares have a 10% training penalty, a 15% penalty in shows; stallions have a 15% training penalty and a 20% competition penalty. The training penalty goes down by 5% each level. Once the training penalty has hit zero, then the competition penalty goes down by 5% per level.

Riding ability does not grant bonuses; it just reduces the penalty.

2a) Stallions being ridden by handlers without a maxed stallion handling and riding ability skill have a small chance (determined by the level of stallion handling and riding ability) of their stallion 'getting loose' or misbehaving at a show and impregnating a mare there. (This does present a risk of causing negative feelings and fighting among players, 2b) would likely be a better idea, despite being less realistic)

3) A base personality can also be implemented, one that affects how the horse acts at shows, how easy they are to train, etc and has a positive and negative aspect to it. For example, a personality trait such as 'restless': these horses are more likely to kick, as such, horses in the paddock with them or horses at a show might be injured by this horse; this horse might also kick the walls of its stall and might injure itself - however, this horse has a lot of energy and is either fast or has a lot of stamina. Personality can be determined via the environment - the personalities of the other horses the foal is with, whether the foal was raised by itself or in a group, whether there was a fully grown horse in the area, if the foal was with its mother and whether the foal was in a stall or in a paddock. The personality is determined by, maybe 6 months? The personality can be affected, but not changed, by temperament. E.g. a bombproof, restless horse would be less likely to kick than a highly strung, restless horse.

4) Once ribbons are added, if one puts puts a red ribbon in the tail of a horse likely to kick (with a personality such as aggressive or restless) or a yellow one in a stallion, it reduces the chance of a negative incident happening at a show (due to people avoiding/respecting the horse's space).

On a scale of 1 'this is as bad an idea as putting pineapple on pizza' to 10 'this is the best idea since pizza', what do you think?

Edit:

2b) Stallions have a 5% chance of getting a 10% penalty at a show, as the rider's riding ability skill goes up, the penalty decreases to, eventually 1% and no lower; as the stallion handling ability is increased, the chance of getting the penalty decreases until it is, eventually, 0,2% and no lower.

Mares have a 5% chance of getting a 10% penalty, which goes down to a 1% chance of getting a 2% penalty; however,once riding ability is maxed, mares will have a 0,1% chance of getting an 10% bonus.

Geldings and sterilised mares both have a 2% chance of getting a 5% penalty BUT they also have a 2% chance of getting a 5% bonus. Geldings' and sterilised mares' bonuses do not increase nor decrease with riding ability.

5) If a stallion or mare is sterilised too late in life (say, 10 years old) there is a 5% chance the sterilisation will have no affect on their behaviour.

Tell me if you think these bonuses and penalties are too little or too much and what you think I should change it to.

For the most part, I like this idea. I think sterile mares and gelding should have the same type of penalty system implemented. But at a lower degree that is affected by the riders skill. I also think that a horses penalty chance percentage before the riders skill is taken into account t should varry between horses. Maybe have it be genetic. I have a stud, mares, and gelding at home. My stud is better behaved than most of the geldings. My personal mare is a witch on the ground but absolutely wicked when it comes to competing and I have no problems once I'm in the middle of her. I throw a lot of little kids on my stud. My brother Buckskin team roping horse is a gelding, but he will fight just about anyone. I think the change need a to be that gelding and spaying will potentially (Not always) lower the penalty risk, but just because a horse is a stud doesn't mean that a horse will have a higher risk.