I agree with pretty much everything you've said (from what I know/have played of the game thus far).
Though I'd seen TiTs on the site before, I hadn't known it was a game like CoC2 until some time in - so CoC2 was like my introduction to Fenoxo's style of game and I had sorta high expectations for their other work as a result.
It's not that TiTs is bad by any stretch of the imagination (nor that I have any issue with the sex in it or whatever), but I find having depth to the bonds you form with certain characters, such as romance/very-close-friends-with-benefits/bromance/etc, is much more enjoyable then just straight-up sex across the board. That's what I liked about Brint in CoC2. Also, you would think a potentially enigmatic character like Steele, especially considering everything that they have going for them, would have at least some people who want more from them then just a quick fuck. Just saying.
From my experience, CoC2 delivered in that way, while I'm yet to see it in TiTs.
Yeah I think the best examples for me are Anno and Cait, with lesser involved characters like Azra, Taivra, and Kelly getting in there too but I digress. Anno and Cait to me more of less fill the same character niched in both CoC2 and TiTs. They're both sexy slutty semi-furry/anthro monster girls (whatever you want to label them as) and while I personally prefer Anno's personality to Cait's, I still feel less connected to her.
With Anno you have one short-ish quest and Cait gets a long and involved scenario that brings in multiple characters from her past. Plus you need Cait in your party to complete other quests too. So I feel like I know her better and that I've spent so much more time with her that despite her religion preaching being a slut I'm still closer to her while Anno seems to always devolve into a wanton slut despite being a super intelligent warp field scientist. I'm aware that it's a smut based game and I have no problems with the porn, but the doctorate in space physics thing really gets shoved aside with Anno. Hard. And I think she has some of the most content of any character in TiTs which is to say, why do I then feel closer to the slutty Cat-girl I don't like so Much? Don't get me wrong I really like Anno's personality, I just feel like we don't get to do much with her and that makes your whole relationship feel very superficial with crew members compared to the companions in CoC2. When you think about how Anno still feels like that as one of the more 'developed' characters in the game you can imagine what the less worked on characters must feel like. Little more than passing sex scenes.
I think the largest failing of TiTs is the scope of the game. It's gotten too big too quickly and that gets felt in the depth. I'd almost rather us still be on Myrellion getting really fleshed out planets, quests, and characters than rushing through it but I am also very aware that most people want "MOAR CONTENT NOW!!!" and already expect more from a small thinly stretched dev team so that probably wouldn't work and people would complain about a lack of pace.
With the smaller characters, Azra, Kelly, and Taivra being examples because I like them then. I very much enjoy all of their stories and interactions, but they just feel incomplete to me, and with the movement and pacing in the game its so much more "adding more" to the game than "digging deeper" into what's already there. It makes me sad in a way because the characters I like probably won't be getting much more added to them. Again Azra, who is one of the few characters who outright says she isn't just an exotic porn fetish and wants to be treated like a lady has an interesting backstory in the making but two-thirds of one less than stellar quest. We don't get to explore a real relationship with her of even that much of the exotic porn fetish part either. And Kelly snuck up on me with her weird Zil loving quirkiness. I would've loved to be able to take her with me to adventure but all you have a a bunch of kinky sex. You don't even have the vanilla sex, just the kinky. It boils down to "oh I didn't know the professional looking lab secretary was a deliciously sexy double dicked Zil crazy gal" to "Hey lets do different kinds of sex" without much after. I feel like there needs to be so much more to that.
But Taivra had them build that Nyrean city/town they live in,so just she couldn't leave to be a crew-mate for while,plus the Nyrea are technologically simple people
I think Taivra had a world of opportunity. As far as I know she's the first official "wife" you can get in the game (I speak under correction) and seems to take her relationship with Steele (short as it may be) more seriously and maturely than most other characters. Even the ones who fall in love with you like the Syri's and Kiro's and Anno's feel like they're kind of more just playing boyfriend. Taivra gives you "you are a husband" vibes and I like that. I feels real. Hell, you're already Anno's third, and she's flying around with you instead of her actual/first girlfriend. Also she totally banged your dad and IDK how to feel about it. Once again I understand that it's a porn game and I appreciate the smut, but I do think real story and emotion in a work this big makes the smut go a much longer way. But I'm drifting from the point again.
The way I understood the Nyrea was that Taivra didn't build the city for her people so much as she gained so many followers by having the biggest dick (ovipositor? pseudo-penis?) amongst the local Nyrea so to speak and they began her betas or followers because she proved her strength over all of them and defeated all of her challengers, thereby founding a sort of city state due to her sheer martial might. She has obviously come to care for her people and as the glue holding her empire together it would certainly be difficult to just take her away from the place. That's where some creative story-telling comes in I think. Maybe her Nyrea integrate more into Myr society. Maybe you help relocate them to a new planet like Mhen'ga like with the rebel Myr and by integrating into more advanced society they become a more stable social structure idk. Point is I think she seems the type to enjoy adventuring with her husband and fucking shit up on the way, learning more about the universe and technology and kicking ass, taking names, and filling a few betas with eggs along the way.
The Nyrea are technologically very simple but Taivra straight up says she's kept it that way to be less of a threat to the Myr so they don't just nuke her and her people. If you helped them move to another planet they might have an easier time teching-up. Maybe you help send her daughter to a civilized college to meet some new races and expand her horizons to make her somewhat less of a stuck up bitch. You help out the whole Nyrean race and you get your sexy wife to travel with you and do sex stuff to each other and other people too. Its a win-win. But at the moment you have some greetings and sex scenes which irritates me because I can see so much more and as I said earlier, there most likely won't be more unless I want to go and write it myself. The problem being, I don't think I could jerk off to my own writing. Also the time, energy, and writing expertise needed to make that happen not even taking into account whether or not that all gets accepted by the dev team. If enough people want it then shit I might have to.
That all being said I want to make it clear that I still have tons of appreciation for the dev team for making this. I still like that game content very much. I just think there's so much more that could be done with it although it is fantastically creative source material to me. I think my wanting so much more is praise in itself for their work and like with anything it could probably be better even though this is my opinion and others would likely want more from TiTs in many other ways which then again turns around into the never-ending cycle of people wanting more than the Devs can give. The only way to get exactly what I want is to make my own game.
Thanks for giving me a place to rant guys, I know that was way too long.
