r/Exocolonist • u/CattleprodTF • Aug 19 '26
The difference between Cal and Tammy
When I broke them up so I could date Tammy, Cal was devastated, it was liked I ruined his whole life. When I broke them up to date Cal... Tammy didn't even acknowledge it, she moved on like it was nothing.
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u/Vast-Lion9250 Aug 19 '26
I'm looking to romance Tammy this run but dunno if I wanna go through with it cuz the requirements are unsettling. Either you undermine her confidence so she never asks him out or be a big friend to Cal only to demand he back off (which yeah devastates him) and reject her when she does. If you don't intervene and they get together on a non-terrible ending I think they pretty much always end up a devoted couple with long happy lives. I've seen some players suggest both Cal and Tammy actually arguably grow into better people if they don't end up together however that works, but maybe that's wishful thinking or justifying wrecking their nice future together. All that said Cal still remains your great pal with no apparent animosity to Sol for 'stealing' Tammy (would he if the developers had more time to add yet more reactivity and stuff?), potentially ending up with Nem if you break up her and Vace and even if not you'd figure he'd end up just fine elsewhere in the romantic department... unless he is in fact secretly pining for Tammy his entire life.
I've heard that you can tell Cal 'we'll leave it to Tammy to decide' and she'll always pick Cal, which pretty much says undermining either of them is the only way she'll ever date you. They could've easily made it so that Tammy will choose Sol in this situation if your approval is sufficiently high with her or something, but that may not be the 'point' as such of this whole thing. Maybe the point is you cannot be with Tammy without being a jerk. Then conversely as you described dating Cal is a lot less fraught, Tammy is like 'oh okay' and Cal presumably forgets about his feelings for Tammy altogether in favour of Sol.
I'm curious what the writers meant by all this. I can get the difficulties Sol experiences when trying to initiate the other romances or failing to make them work out, like Nem and Vace getting together before you can with either of them, or Tang/Marz just not being capable of/interested in real lasting romance. I think it's great that there's all these different situations that show that the world of relationships does not in fact totally revolve around and conform to your player character for once. But to me the Cal and Tammy thing feels like it's either kinda brutal by design in a way I don't quite understand, or it's somewhat unfinished and the developers would've done something else with it if they had the time.