Obviously there are some major concerns to be said for making things too easy. The problem with adding too many elements that do the work for you is that the player runs out of things to do around the base - but the reverse it also true. Sometimes, it just sucks to have to siphon buckets upon buckets of oil from A to B. I suggest the addition of pipes, which would operate as a foreground block. That is to say, a block that is not on the background or the play area, but is superimposed over the rest of the game such that the player walks behind them and they are visible while underground (for given light levels). Pipes would be directional, and the orientation of their pull could be changed with, say, a right-click. Pipes would be able to be led to pools of liquid, but would actively draw from the liquid in the direction that they are aligned. This would allow the players to siphon oil, water or lava from natural pockets and against gravity. Oil would be able to be piped directly into a generator, or a container from which a generator operates. Pipes would also be able to transfer non-liquid materials, by bridging the gap between production facilities (whatever they may be) and containers. This would make it easy to output manufactured items into storage.
Then these pipes could be used as merely foreground pieces only as to hide players that enter them as well as the purpose. Now it may be annoying if changing the direction of the pipe is by right-clicking because if there is a battle and you are by pipes the direction could be changed during the battle. Instead I propose that the direction would be changed like it was in Terraria with directional heads that could be switched in and out manually. Otherwise, I really don't see too much of a reason as why not to include this.
Right-clicking was just one suggestion. Considering that weapon switching already uses a key modifier, it could just as easily be alt-click or, heaven forbid, even just the 'use' key (maybe 'e'?). As far as player hiding, I anticipated that the pipe be made of glass or at least something semi-transparent. A sillhouette would probably still be visible even through oil and if not, making a player-coloured sillhouette would be a good idea anyway.
I don't see why it matters, but if the pipe is running across the foreground of some player-level blocks, I don't see why the dirt/stone couldn't hug the pipe, the same way Terraria ore/stone now runs smoothly into dirt. And no, that's definitely not a euphemism.
Yeah! i totaly like this idea! I can alredy imagine myself running across a junkyard planet harvesting pipes for my base factory!
Well it is just because foreground blocks can easily be used for obscuring what the player can see, so if they tell if there is a solid block behind the pipe or not then they wouldn't know if there was a pitfall right there.
To pull against gravity you should have a pump at the end of the pipe, also they could be used for gasses (if these were to be added to the game).
I was thinking you could crawl into an empty pipe and when you enter it the view changes so you could see the inside of a pipe.
I like the sheer simplicity of the idea. Pumps, I believe, add a level of complexity that is unnecessary for the common user. Directional pipes are just fine.
I like the idea of pipes, but why not have pipes similar to Terraria's wires? That is, small and in the foreground. They could even be shown permanently, rather than only when holding a wrench. I agree with ShadowPWNSyou that pumps make more sense than individual directionable pipe-blocks. Maybe pumps should be smaller, but they control the flow of the whole network, so switching on or off is simple. With individual blocks, you'd have to go to each and every block to deactivate it. Perhaps there could be two versions of pipes: wire-like pipes for gasses and small amounts of liquid, and block-like pipes for larger amounts of liquid (not suitable for gasses)...? And maybe Mario-like pipes for sewers or decoration or tactical hiding or something. In fact, why not have hosepipes too? Stretchy and flexible like the grappling hook but does the job of the smaller pipe...
