What's up with pipes?

[Daemonjax]

I remember years ago I was able to bring pipes down into the jelly cave. And that was all the way from the surface.

Now, I can't bring them into the cave anymore -- even from a base right at the entrance. I can only connect 1.

It's not just the jelly cave... it's basically anything cave-like... even those large tunnels in the safe shallows (so the limitation is definitely not based on depth).

Are they bugged now or is this intentional? I never felt like the pipes were OP last time I played. They're totally useless now since they won't go much past cave entrances.

[SealieP]

I remember way back in early access playing with them and trying to use them for the Lost River and everything in one game. It seems to me they changed, but I didn't think they nerfed them that much. Maybe something happened when they did that last update.

[Daemonjax]

It seems like there's an invisible wall at all cave-like entrances that they won't go past.

[rdbury]

My understanding is they updated the collision detection for pipes and the result is they won't go through narrow caves/passages. The upshot is that if you can't get your moth through then you won't be able to get pipes through either. That makes pipes kind of useless except for very early in the game; why pipe in air when you can just park your moth there? I don't know which entrance to the Jelly caves you're trying to use, but you can squeeze a moth through at least one of them. So maybe pipes have been nerfed even more since the last time I played.

[Darth Cervantes]

they are useless now, I once did the same thing with jelly shroom cave , hours and hours of work all made useless once I got the sea moth, lol

[DrBonifarz]

An interesting finding. Though, I agree pipes have always been rather pointless, so they are rarely ever in use.

As a side note: The Deathrun Remade mod has come up with a very clever design choice for these. Although it introduces a hard depth limit of just 100m on the air pipes , those things are quite essential there, since they filter the otherwise unbrathable surface air.