Wild Horse Behavior

I will be listing each feature in small categories:

Wild Horses:

• Wild horses will now flee from players in survival mode if they come too close (within 16 blocks).
• When spooked, a horse and all horses within it's herd will bolt, then gradually slow down gaits as they gain a safe distance from whatever scared them.
• Horse fleeing ai/general pathfinding is improved to allow them to traverse water and difficult obstacles, though they still might get stuck or have bugs occur. Please notify me of this so I can try and iron it out.
• Wild stallions and mares that have spawned with foals have a chance to charge a player and bite/kick should they come too close. They will back down if you back down.
• Wild horses generally have a lesser spawnrate to help with potential lag and to keep herds more compact.
• Wild horses (mares) have a chance to spawn with a foal.

Social Behavior (Wild and Tamed)

• You will notice herds have a distinct heirarchy determined by lowest entity ID, which means generally the same animals will be chosen to lead or be "dominant". This means you will have a clear lead mare in every wild herd and tamed pasture.
• Herds are led and headed by said lead mare and have a cap of around 10 horses per herd. If a herd is capped out, straggler horses will form their own herd.
• "Subordinate" animals follow behind the lead mare during chases, bolts, and randomly occuring migrations that she initiates. They will form a line formation and follow her when she rears.
• Once arrived to a new area the horses will spread out to graze.
• Horses have a chance to bond with other horses, meaning they will stick by their side, follow them around while grazing, and will not fight with them.
• Mares can bond with 1-4 horses. Stallions can only bond to 1 horse.

Intact Male (Stallion) behavior:

• In both wild and tamed herds stallions will behave like, well, stallions. They will compete for access to a herd by dueling one another.
• Duels begin with two stallions approaching head-to-head and dishing out attacks (rear, less damage, kick, more damage) until one stallion backs down.
• The winning stallion will chase the loser 50 blocks away from the herd then return to the block the duel started on.
• With this system, herds naturally slim down to 1 stallion and mares, with exiled (losing) males on the outskirts, passively healing until they have enough health to challenge the dominant stallion again.
• Unlike their wild counterparts, tamed stallions have no problem with each other UNTIL they are within 5 blocks of a mare, then they will start beefing (see more about breeding below).
• It's highly reccomended if not completely necessary to have sex-segregated pastures, or else your stallions will fight and get each other dangerously low. There is also risk for crossfire with other horses. Additionally, in small pastures, the losing stallions will be constantly chased away from the herd.

Breeding:

• Natural breeding only occurs with tamed horses. Even if you don't intend to breed your horses, leaving an intact male and intact female in a pasture together will inevitably result in a surprise foal, just like in real life. If you don't want to breed your horses, sterilize them using the existing SWEM sterilization potion and turn your stallions into geldings.

• You can turn out geldings and mares in the same pasture, no conflict or breeding will occur. Geldings are mechanically mares that cannot lead. Stallions will also ignore/tolerate them.

• If you intend to breed your horses it's reccomended to leave a single stallion in a pasture with mares. You may have 2 stallions without conflict if you are certain they are bonded and will tolerate each other (see above).

• SWEM already has a "ready" system that is expanded upon in this addon. When mares are ready they will follow around a stallion of their choice. Stallions, ready or not, will follow around mares, and especially ""ready"" (in estrus) mares.

• Horses that are flirting with each other will make clear vocalizations; nickering and whinnying when they are actively searching.

• During courtship, mares may kick out at a stallion that is crowding them.

• Stallions will shadow each ready mare one at a time.

• Mares about to foal will lay down for about 1-2 minutes before the baby is born. Keep and eye out!!!

Tamed Horses:

• Tamed horses will sometimes notice you across the pasture and trot up to you, asking for (likely) treats or attention or just to greet you before walking off.
• Tamed horses will sometimes canter and gallop around the pasture for fun.
• In the future I may make behaviors dynamic with the affinity system. Currently affinity doesn't affect behavior.

Lunging/Leads:

• Horses will now trot after you when being lead to avoid the "dragged" look of mobs on leads. They will try not to crowd you.
• Wild horses on leads will not be happy about it, kicking, rearing, and even charging the player to bite. Rarely they will try to bolt, which may or may not break the lead, so be careful.
• While holding a lead, crouch and right click on a horse that is on your lead to activate lunging. This is where you work a horse in a controlled circle around you and can control its gait.
• Wild horses will only be able to trot and canter, they are not calm enough to walk.
• Tamed horses may walk, trot, and canter, and will not try to kill you.
• Wild horses can be tacked up and have tack taken off via crouch and right click. This along with lunging is mostly for roleplay purposes, it has no real functionality as of now.

Taming:

• Taming was reworked to be more dangerous and dynamic. Riding a wild horse will now put you at risk of being bucked off; flung off its back, kicked, bitten, and killed if you're not careful.
• Stallions will sometimes dump you then immediately follow up with a charge and bite, they will generally be more aggressive than mares.
• A freshly broken-in horse will now have the exhausted SWEM animation for up to a minute. This is just cosmetic and for rp purposes.
• In the future I may add in another way to tame horses through gentling/patience, this is not currently implemented though.

Sounds:

• A bunch of horse sounds have been added. Neighing, knickering, whinnying, and angry bellows.

Configs:

• This addon is extremely configurable. Here's a short list:

• Flee distances and speeds

• Herd and migration sizes and chances

• Duel damage, exile minutes and chance

• Breeding chance and range

• Spawn keep, foal chance and growth seconds

• Taming buck counts and throw power

• Lead on/off, aggro damage, bonds and slide assist