Ice boat roads

The Nether effectively compresses travel because 1 block there equals 8 blocks in the Overworld. Stack that with boat-on-ice speed and cross-map trips become a few minutes. Nether tunnels also avoid mountains and oceans, but they need proper lighting, barriers, and hazard protection to be safe at speed.

Blue ice is noticeably faster and feels better on long straight runs, but it is much harder to mass-produce since it crafts from packed ice. Most public networks start with packed ice for reach and affordability, then upgrade major trunks or high-traffic lines to blue ice once the server has serious ice production.

Yes. It is vanilla boat physics on ice. Servers might use plugins for claims or rollback to protect public corridors, but the travel itself does not require anything custom.

Predictability. Consistent lane width, guardrails or walls to prevent drift, turn geometry that does not fling you off, and signage placed early enough to react. The best hubs have clearly named lines and exits that lead to sane portal rooms rather than dumping you into a confusing tangle.

Do not break or modify the main line without coordinating, avoid placing random portals that hijack routing, and build new spurs in the established style so intersections stay readable. Many communities also treat traps and choke points as serious griefing because high-speed travel makes small sabotages disproportionately dangerous.