Canals & Locks?

[Praeceptor]

With boats it would be nice if we could build canals to bring boat transportation inland. Maybe mid game having boat locks to raise and lower boats into high and lower sections of the canals? Canals were a major part of life in many early industrial societies.

[Other]

You can build canals already - you might need to use the brick "aqueduct" form for the bottom & sides, and you might need to use pumps to create water source blocks at the spots you need them, but they will stay once you turn off & dismantle the pumps. I've had some success getting at least a canoe to go up & down the 1-level changes that a river normally has, and it should be possible to build bypasses around waterfalls that have a series of 1-level bumps rather than a 5-20 level straight drop.

If that ability to navigate small level changes is unique to the canoe, then for everything else canals would need to be at sea level (or a closed system at higher elevation, but that doesn't seem like it would be very useful). You could do "locks" in a crude sense (it is closer to a portage) by dropping enough stockpiles to unload the boat (and maybe your backpack), transferring the cargo, picking up the boat, and then placing it in the water at the new elevation. That does waste the current partially consumed fuel for the types with engines, though, and breaks the RP immersion some.