Transportation
Transportation is the general category that covers all modes of transportation. Whether you have a path or road network, a teleportation network, a series of strategically placed livery stables, inchworm drives for the air, the sea, the surface, or below the surface, or some mixture of the above, it all belongs under the moniker of Transportation.
Please remember that at any time you have the right to invoke the Rule of Cool to override any of these rules.
Roads and Pathways
Pathways
Underground Tunnels
Tracks and Minecarts
Maritime
Before I progress any further, I would like to have a brief discussion on the difference between Minecraft physics and IRL physics. I apologize for the sudden break of the 4th wall. I will also need to have a second discussion of this when I cover Airships.
In Real Life
In Real Life, we have ships whose keels extend far below the surface of the water. This is to prevent them from toppling over, stability, speed, etc. This is all crucially important when designing IRL ships. However, this is not real life.
In Minecraft
In Minecraft, if you try to build below the surface of the water, you will end up destroying water. If you later introduce an inchworm drive to a ship with a keel below water, you will leave a path of destroyed water behind you. Therefore, for the purposes of this challenge, ships' hulls will begin one block above water, with a flat bottom, so if it moves it will move across the surface of the water, but never destroy the water itself. You can cry and whine about how that's not "realistic" all you want. And you're right. It ISN'T realistic. It's Minecraftistic.
Docks
Shipping
Aviation
In the same vein as the Maritime shipping has more than a few slight tweaks, so too does the Aviation need more than a few tweaks to fit it into non-Newtonian, Minecraft physics. The primary difference being that Gravity is different. Also, inertia doesn't necessarily effect things the same way.
Thrust applied IRL will continue until friction slows an aircraft to a stop, at which point gravity will tighten its hold on the aircraft as the aircraft grows slower and slower. In Minecraft, unless you have an aircraft made 100% of Gravel or Sand, gravity won't have nearly the same effect. For this reason, for the purposes of this challenge, Airships in the vein of hot air balloons and dirigibles will be the primary means of air power. But if you want to have a sailing ship fly, feel free. This is Minecraft, after all, and it will stay up there until it's destroyed or you find a super-realistic physics mod. Or you get bored and destroy the world.