Horse Armor and Horse Feeding

I'd like to just say that I just thought up several ideas based on some custom player made content for Bethsda softworks ElderScrolls4:Oblivion.

Now, say someone has a horse? But because they use that horse often it may get injured? By feeding your mount it will heal a small amount of HP. Say, oh, normal horses would obviously eat Hay/Grain. A nightmare and griffin would eat meat. A hippogriph and hippocampus would eat maybe fish or seaweed? Thus we have a method of healing our mount by talking to it and feeding it.

I think that making their inventory for their saddlebags accessable by talking would be good idea too if we implement feeding your mount. For people with animal empathy or for intelligent mounts it would also allow you to speak/pet/groom your mount.

Finally if you could add armor to your mount it would increase its AC, which would be very useful for people who use their mounts to charge into battle or bring them to dangerous regions.

Now, since the normal horses only have about 10-20 HP, each feeding should heal maybe 5 HP? Since a nightmare and griffin are both intelligent mounts and have the ability to enter combat against your enemies along side you (like a hireling), it would probably be wiser that their food heal more. Exotic mounts like a hippogriph or hippocampus would likely not be able to use armor, but you should still be able to feed them, and neither have the capability to fight either from my knowledge...

But these are ideas that could improve the experience for those who use a mount. It allows you to have armor, food, and conversation with them.

This is a really good intriguing idea... and now that we can stable our mounts ((by using horse stable in/out at a designated stable area - keep an eye on that combat logs blue messages)) this brings mount functionality further into the game... I really like the idea of horse armour or barding... but get (I think) 10+ ranks in the ride skill and ye can purchase a heavy warhorse (with barding) already... ... so to extend the idea of Armour - Horse Only Barding we could get some with magical properties, such as DR and SR, that can only be used on horses ... and then get horses that circumvent the "NO horses allowed" restrictions because they be "brave" war horses.... .... ... ??

great idea, lets see what can do with them

I have already noted that a horse CAN wear some cloaks..... after ye give it some saddlebags.... .... the cloaks vanish however after a mount/demount but all items in active inventory stay.... .... continued testing and horses CAN wear certain armours (mainly robes).... same rules as for cloaks.... ... basically give it to the horse , if it shows as white the horse can wear it, (inc rings, boots, amulets... but not helms, weapons or gloves)... this can be useful but any equipped items will vanish after a mount/demount .. ... and none of the above seemed to provide any extra's once mounted .... ..... .... also VC command "horse emptybags" is a bit iffy.. it doesn't always empty the bag, and never seems to give ye the bags back.... .... and all horse inventory vanishes after a stable in/out.... .....

So that is how things currently stand, to my reckoning.... I'm sure this can be improved upon .....

I'll have to check on the horse emptybags thing not working right.

The inventory vanishing when you stable the horse...that one is intentional...the horses aren't a form of persistent storage...and when you leave your horse somewhere without watching it, someone could easily walk off with the saddlebags and everything in them.

The equipped items vanishing on mount/dismount...that one is probably due to the fact that a horse's inventory is moved "elsewhere" while you are mounted, then restored when the horse is restored (dismounted). Technically, items in equipments slots aren't in inventory, but in equipment slots, so those probably aren't copied over by the game engine when you mount up.

I do like the idea of caring for a horse to help it out or getting horse-enhancing items. Something for me to think about.

And as noted previously, actual ranks in Ride (not counting ability/extra bonuses) mean you can buy stronger horses with better armor.
0-4 ranks: riding horse (no barding)
5-9 ranks: light war horse (leather barding)
10+ ranks: heavy war horse (plate/chain barding)

Are all the horse dealers supposed to offer heavy warhorses? Angelica has 40 base ride skill, and all the mountainholm guy offers her are riding horses and light war horses.

Is it possible to tie the animal companion/familiar dialogue tree (and functions) into the horses?... feeding,playing,joking all in there..