A guide to maximising your character's combat potential through transformation

[King Kenya]

In Trials in Tainted Space, Fenoxo doesn't like transformatives to give abilities, on the basis that they can force a form on a player which may not be the one they like most in the name of being more powerful in combat. This means that what abilities and perks that can be gained are often costly, time consuming, or just really exacting to get. Some however are permanent, and can be retained if you transform away from the form that gave them to you. Below is a list of the abilities you can gain, their associated transformatives, and any prerequisites they may have. I have put them in the order that I think you should try to get them in, so that you can end up with a blank slate at the end which you can then morph into the form you truly want, perks and all. A lot of save scumming may be in order for some of them.
This is written with the assumption that you have not taken The Treatment, which provides boosts but at a cost I don't want to pay, and as the different forms are mutually exclusive, not universal like these are.
I am also not including the Icy Veins, Wooly, Resin, or Buttslut Perks, which demand a specific form to be held or can transform you away from your ideal form without any input from you. I am including the Flower Power perk, as it can be held and used with only a hair flower, which doesn't interfere with other transformations, and if your character is feminine, can be imagined as rather fetching.

Order	Perk	Transformative	Beneficial Effect	Prerequisites	Notes
1	Jungle Queen Scent	Amazona	Pheromone Boosts Tease Attacks +4	Nil	25% chance when overdosing (7 or more doses)
2	Energizing Libido/Snu-Snu Queen	Amazona	Prevents energy loss from sex, and 1/4 chance to gain 1-3 energy per sexual encounter.	Libido must be greater than 40.	10% chance when overdosing (7 or more doses), and is lost if libido drops below 40.
3	Myr Venom	Red Pill/Orange Pill	Tongue gains 'aphrodisiac laced' flag, adds a new type of tease attack.	Myr score must be 4 or more.	Can be lost by gaining the "honeypot" perk from Gold Pills, although not from Orange Pills. You will probably get antennae while trying to gain this perk, I believe that only Terran treats or ReductPro can remove them, which I recommend, they can interfere with later transformations.
4	Alpha Scent	Lupinol	Pheromone boosts Tease Attacks + 4	Lupine score must be 5 or more, and no other transformation requirement met.	You must be a full wolf morph to gain this perk. Do not bother trying to gain while pregnant, your vagina transformations will be cancelled and it won't work.
5 (No longer a pain thanks to Theron below)	Musky Pheromones	Lion-Os	Pheromone boosts Tease Attacks + 5	Must have penis, balls, and fur.	Until Lion-Os came out, had to use Laquine Ears to get this perk, which are a very complex TF and can be irritating to use right. You can do it that way if you want, but I would not recommend it.
6	Flower Power	Cerespirin	adds a new special ability "Pollen Veil", which causes lust damage every 3 turns	Must be feminine, have plant skin, and have 2 of the following: hair flower, arm flowers, a flower vagina, or a flower tail-cunt.	Increases minimum lust by 20, minimum libido by 45, and must have one of the 4 transformatives on the left to be kept. I recommend the hair flower, it isn't mutually exclusive with other transformations. You can retain a hair flower while changing your hair type and when growing horns. Just don't use an immuno-booster.

Once you have done all this, you can very carefully transform yourself back to a basic human form using Terran Treats, then start altering yourself into the person you want to be.
There are other transformative associated perks which can be retained when you change your form of course, such as the Flexible perk from Catnip, but that has no effect on your combat abilities as far as I can tell, or on any important scenes in the game, and just lets you perform autofellatio with ease.
There are also a few combat associated perks that can be gained without transforming yourself, but they are easier to deal with, and need little explanation.
If you think I have missed anything, or made any mistakes, please correct me. Happy morphing!

 

[Theron]

You can also get Musky Pheromones from 1 dose of Lion-Os, provided you already have cock + balls + fur skin. Fur is easiest to acquire from Catnip. No specific size requirements. There's also a trick for getting large penises without Hung. Use 2x Condensol, then your size enhancer of choice. When the Condensol wears off, it will be 4x as effective.

Antennae can be removed with ReductPro.

Sweet Sweat gives Pheromone Sweat. While a lot of enemies dislike 'Sweat', this really has no downside. Either you're sweaty and teases are a little more effective than they would otherwise be, or you're not, and you're not taking the sweaty penalty.

Doll Maker can get you Inhuman Desire 15, if you don't already have Inhuman Desire, increasing your maximum Lust (as well as slightly increasing the difference between max from passive gain and max total). It can also get you Breed Hungry, which reduces the Bulky Belly penalty from pregnancies, among other things. Which one you get is random, so keep a save.

 

[TheShepard256]

Correction: Myr Venom can only be removed using Gold Pills; it's perfectly possible to have both it and Honeypot, and in fact, Orange Pills can give you both.

Addition: having flight-capable wings allows you to use melee attacks against flying enemies without the level 8 Mercenary-exclusive Lunge perk, and gives a slight boost to your chance to flee in combat if your enemies can't fly. The easiest ways to get them are to start as a half-gryvain or use Dove Balm; though you might get some anyways depending on what exactly you want to TF yourself into.

For the Treatment variants:

• Cum-Cow is the best if you're a Tech Specialist and willing to abuse Dumb4Cum's Intelligence-boosting mechanic (and be a bimbo when that effect isn't active), but the last time I tried that, maintaining it was rather finicky. Also, not all players are keen on having their character give a lot of blowjobs.
• Faux-Cow is the next best, as it gives you Inhuman Desire (+40 to Max Lust; make sure to get the Doll Maker's Inhuman Desire first) without an accompanying Min Lust increase like all the other variants do, as well as Innocent Allure, which causes your Tease attacks to stagger enemies for several turns. Its other perks are avoidable: Perma-Cute can be overridden by ODing on Estrobloom variants, or not gained in the first place by using Estrobloom variants or ManUp to stay out of the required Femininity range. Cum Highs and Easy can be avoided by never being cumflated after the 125th hour of being Treated (i.e. within the last 1 day, 20 hours).
• None of the other three are particularly good, but Amazon is less bad, pretty much entirely because it gives you Amazonian Needs (+20 Min Lust) while the other two give Treated Readiness (sets Min Lust to 33 if it's below that).

Funnily enough, I came up with pretty much the same list as you (minus Flower Power) for my own Steele, plus Faux-Cow Treatment, wings, Buttslut (which, for those who don't know, heals 1HP per litre of anal cumflation), and the only two good Doll Maker perks.

 

[Theron]

Addition: having flight-capable wings allows you to use melee attacks against flying enemies without the level 8 Mercenary-exclusive Lunge perk, and gives a slight boost to your chance to flee in combat if your enemies can't fly. The easiest ways to get them are to start as a half-gryvain or use Dove Balm; though you might get some anyways depending on what exactly you want to TF yourself into.

Lunge is Level 10. They can also be used to get certain places with reduced Energy cost (Zil Village, Myrellion Deep Caves, Cave on Uveto's shore).
That said, I was under the impression Wings were not under consideration because they do have a permanent impact on Steele's appearance. You can also get the same effect with the Light Jetpack, though it does take your Accessory slot. Not that +10 Evasion is bad.

For the Treatment variants:

• Cum-Cow is the best if you're a Tech Specialist and willing to abuse Dumb4Cum's Intelligence-boosting mechanic (and be a bimbo when that effect isn't active), but the last time I tried that, maintaining it was rather finicky. Also, not all players are keen on having their character give a lot of blowjobs.

Dumb4Cum was nerfed to +1 Intelligence/Level.

• Faux-Cow is the next best, as it gives you Inhuman Desire (+40 to Max Lust; make sure to get the Doll Maker's Inhuman Desire first) without an accompanying Min Lust increase like all the other variants do,

Bull also doesn't have a Minimum Lust increase and has Pheromone Cloud.

As an aside: I don't know any way to remove Brute Speech other than the Console/Save Editing, unlike Ditz Speech (Doll Maker's 'temporary' will also remove it from any other source when it wears off).

 

[King Kenya]

Correction: Myr Venom can only be removed using Gold Pills; it's perfectly possible to have both it and Honeypot, and in fact, Orange Pills can give you both.

Addition: having flight-capable wings allows you to use melee attacks against flying enemies without the level 8 Mercenary-exclusive Lunge perk, and gives a slight boost to your chance to flee in combat if your enemies can't fly. The easiest ways to get them are to start as a half-gryvain or use Dove Balm; though you might get some anyways depending on what exactly you want to TF yourself into.

For the Treatment variants:

• Cum-Cow is the best if you're a Tech Specialist and willing to abuse Dumb4Cum's Intelligence-boosting mechanic (and be a bimbo when that effect isn't active), but the last time I tried that, maintaining it was rather finicky. Also, not all players are keen on having their character give a lot of blowjobs.
• Faux-Cow is the next best, as it gives you Inhuman Desire (+40 to Max Lust; make sure to get the Doll Maker's Inhuman Desire first) without an accompanying Min Lust increase like all the other variants do, as well as Innocent Allure, which causes your Tease attacks to stagger enemies for several turns. Its other perks are avoidable: Perma-Cute can be overridden by ODing on Estrobloom variants, or not gained in the first place by using Estrobloom variants or ManUp to stay out of the required Femininity range. Cum Highs and Easy can be avoided by never being cumflated after the 125th hour of being Treated (i.e. within the last 1 day, 20 hours).
• None of the other three are particularly good, but Amazon is less bad, pretty much entirely because it gives you Amazonian Needs (+20 Min Lust) while the other two give Treated Readiness (sets Min Lust to 33 if it's below that).

Funnily enough, I came up with pretty much the same list as you (minus Flower Power) for my own Steele, plus Faux-Cow Treatment, wings, Buttslut (which, for those who don't know, heals 1HP per litre of anal cumflation), and the only two good Doll Maker perks.

Good to know about the orange pills.
I have always played a smuggler, so I was never tempted by the cum-cow mechanics. And I just don't like the treatment.
I have wings, but didn't mention them as they are form-specific and easily gained, and I rejected buttslut because it forces an enormous backside on your character with daily growth that you can't counteract without using a vast amount of reductpro on a daily basis.

 

[King Kenya]

You can also get Musky Pheromones from 1 dose of Lion-Os, provided you already have cock + balls + fur skin. Fur is easiest to acquire from Catnip. No specific size requirements. There's also a trick for getting large penises without Hung. Use 2x Condensol, then your size enhancer of choice. When the Condensol wears off, it will be 4x as effective.

Antennae can be removed with ReductPro.

Sweet Sweat gives Pheromone Sweat. While a lot of enemies dislike 'Sweat', this really has no downside. Either you're sweaty and teases are a little more effective than they would otherwise be, or you're not, and you're not taking the sweaty penalty.

Doll Maker can get you Inhuman Desire 15, if you don't already have Inhuman Desire, increasing your maximum Lust (as well as slightly increasing the difference between max from passive gain and max total). It can also get you Breed Hungry, which reduces the Bulky Belly penalty from pregnancies, among other things. Which one you get is random, so keep a save.

Very good to know about the Lion-O's. I gained musky pheromones back before they were introduced. If I lose my save game I will start again with that.
I only remembered Sweet Sweat once I had posted, and it is so easily gained compared to everything else that it can be left out.