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I don't known enough about genetics to answer any of your questions, haha... But! Those are some lovely gals. I love the hom DP and Sty livers

@rachrobe - I love these colors too, and I'm glad you liked them.

@Ammit - If it is just random variation, then I can accept that. I love both of the mares as is. Thanks so much for taking the time to respond to my question.

"what is the difference between a letter being on the left or the right of the forward slash symbol"
It tells you if it came from the sire or the dam.

@VoodooRangeress5, these are really great questions!

(Chapel, I hope you don't mind me jumping in here :)) )

As you stated, this game builds on real life genetics so there is always a variability in phenotype (physical appearance) even with the exact genotype (genetic make up). It's the reason why we have reds so dark they look black all the way to reds so light they are almost orangey both here and in real life. That's always been the goal of this game is to maintain that realism between the game and real life even with fantasy genes. You can create "true breeding" genotypes (liver reds for example) that will always produce the same genotype generation after generation (if using the right genetic combos) but as Chapel's example so aptly demonstrates, the phenotype may vary slightly. Doesn't change the fact that they are still liver red and will produce liver reds (if put to red studs). The pictures can always be rerolled for more uniformity but it won't change their base color genome if that makes sense. There are certain gene combos that might predispose a certain type of look, for example, sooty+ increases the concentration of darkened hair in certain areas of the horse and enhances dapples more dramatically than sooty which is more evenly distributed over the body of the horse and could promote dapples but perhaps not as vividly. It's the same type of gene with the same purpose (darkening) but their effects are slightly different.

You also mentioned P/P versus P/p- so you are exactly right when stating P/P (and p/p) is homozygous (meaning horse has 2 copies) and will always pass a 1 copy onto its foal. P/p (lowercase) is heterozyous (horse has 1 copy of dominant pangere and 1 copy of recessive pangare). In this case, the horse will have a 50% chance of passing either one on to its foal. It doesn't matter which order heterozygous genes appear in (P/p versus p/P) since it's still 50/50 which gene gets passed on.

Hopefully this is a wee bit clearer! These are awesome questions and thank you so much for asking! If any of that is confusing, please feel free to state as much and I'll clarify or get more resources as needed!

Chapel, thank you again!