Magical gene / no coat effect

Base alarm

It whinnies when something hostile comes near. Not near your base — near the horse, which is why where you stable one is the whole of how you use it.

Built, and not yet seen in game

The gene, its inheritance and its founder table exist and are covered by the test suite; the translator that turns it into behaviour was written against the 26.1.2 sources and is flagged unverified in its own comments. Nothing on this page has been watched happening to a horse. What to look at, and what is most likely to be wrong, is on To be verified.

What it does

CombinationOutcome
one or two copieswhinnies when a hostile enters about 16 blocks
n/nnothing

Dominant, so it spreads readily and a stable will end up with several.

Put it by the door

The radius is measured from the horse, so an alarm horse is a thing you place. One in the paddock by the entrance warns you about the entrance; one you ride warns you about wherever you are.

Health

None. It announces the danger; it does nothing about it.

Gene key
horsegenetics.base_alarm
Alleles
Alm alarm, n
Inheritance
dominant
Reaches the game as
a sound effect on a detection beat
Coat effect
none, ever
There is no “base” in this mod, and inventing one was rejected

The original specification said “your base radius”. No such concept exists — there are stall signs, the barn and pens, and nothing that means home. Measuring from the horse was chosen over measuring from a stall sign, which would silently do nothing for any horse without one.

One whinny per detection, with a cooldown

Fire when something enters the radius, not once per beat per mob in it. Dominant inheritance makes this worse than it sounds — several alarm horses in one paddock all noticing the same skeleton is the normal case, not the edge case.

Interval scan with a cap, like every radius effect

Nothing new: the same max_targets and tick-offset discipline the format already requires of every radius effect.

Measured from the horse

It makes the gene work everywhere with no setup, no binding item and no concept to invent — and it turns stabling into the interface. Where you put the horse is the configuration.

Dominant on purpose

Most of the behaviour family is recessive and rare. An alarm is only useful if you happen to have one, so this is one of the few that should turn up without being hunted — a common, mildly useful gene that makes an ordinary stable slightly safer.

Planned source: common/genetics/genes/BaseAlarmGene.java