>>714921474Actually, some refinements to this idea:
> A bent copper tube can be created by placing another tube at its side, working the same way as rail bending does.On second thought, given how janky that system is, the last thing we'd want would be copper pipes to work like that. Bends and junctions should be crafted as such. A set of straight copper pipes should be craftable from copper ingots. Bends, junctions should be crafted from copper pipes arranged in a specific way. 1:1 exchange rate for bends, 1.5:1 rate for T-junctions, and 2:1 exchange rate for 4-way junctions. 5 and 6-way junctions could also be a thing, crafted from a 4-way and a simple pipe, and a 4-way and 2 straight pipes, respectively. All pipe blocks should have directional placement. To ease working with them, perhaps there should be a new tool to allow rotation post-placement, basically a gimped and survival-friendly version of the magic wand tool. Could also work with certain non-pipe blocks.
>Add a pipe junction block. Restone signals can alter which 2 of the 3 ends are active.On second thought, there should also be a 4-way junction, and these should not be redstone-dependent. Simply, if an item is fed in on one end, it should be pushed out at random on one of the other ends that are connected to valid containers. This would allow extremely easy and convinient item sorting with sorting valves, since a series of T-junctions chained together, with their free ends connected to sorter valves, could take care of it all.