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To load the Goblin Tumbler, invite the vile forces of darkness down
the stairs and into into the tunnel, by opening all but the innermost
bridge (4).  When a good selection of goblins are present, close the
outermost bridge (1) so no-one misses out on the fun, or leaves the
party early.  Select one of (2) or (3) to close, depending on where
any heavy enemies stand (eg rutherers).  The bridge you select should
support only relatively light enemies, but as many of them as you like.
Let’s call them squad 2 standing on drawbridge 2, squad 3 standing on
drawbridge 3.  Bring together squads 2 and 3 by closing e.g. bridge 2,
launching squad 2 bodily down the tunnel to bludgeon squad 3 (including
any heavy hostiles), with their bodies in armor, puncture and lacerate
them with their weapons, and slam any others into bridge 4.  At this
point both squads are on bridge 3.  Open bridge 2 to attract survivors
with promise of retreat.  If the heavy moves off bridge 3, close
bridge 3 to launch dead bodies and fallen weapons at the survivors.
Otherwise, keep launching whatever moves from bridge 2 towards bridge 4.
Repeat until nothing survives.  Open inner bridge 4 and loot at leisure,
or leave shrapnel in for future parties.

Since this design consumes no resources other than stone (blocks),
build as many as you like without worrying about water or magma flow,
or cleaning and resetting traps.

[EvilBob22]

Interesting idea.  You are going to atom smash a few of them, but meh.  I do see a flaw though, they will not path down there if bridge (4) is closed.  You would have to be careful with the timing of the lever pulls to get it right.  (And you'll want to have the lever room not be visible from the fortress side of lever (4), in case a few slip in.)

[catenate]

Interesting idea.  You are going to atom smash a few of them, but meh.  I do see a flaw though, they will not path down there if bridge (4) is closed.  You would have to be careful with the timing of the lever pulls to get it right.  (And you'll want to have the lever room not be visible from the fortress side of lever (4), in case a few slip in.)

The path leads into my barracks, so the few that get through will be met with competent resistance.

I'm actually more worried whether anything flung by a drawbridge obeys physics to the point of hurting, or whether there's some special code that nerfs all flinging.

[EvilBob22]

Only one way to find out for sure, build it!  Use it!  Try it!  Love it!

[Larix]

My experiences with an automated smasher say that bridges are completely non-directional. If you raise a drawbridge, goblins will simply scatter a few tiles in random directions. I think you'll fling stuff up to three tiles or so up and a few more horizontally if there's open space above the bridge. I simply wanted to get stuff squished and not thrown, so i put it in a tunnel and nothing moved further than a single tile. Flying goblins should be somewhat effective, but flying objects tend to be more reliable, and for that purpose, i think the basic coinstar would be the most effective concept: an ordinary retracting bridge covering all the floor space inside the room, loaded with objects. Goblins probably won't be impressed by flimsy coins, so you should give them something more substantial to train their armour user skill with, like boulders, metal weapons and trap components, goblin corpses...

Seal the room, get the bridge to repeat as fast as possible, wait until all goblins have been turned into additional tumbler ammo.
You definitely should make sure to have bridge-flingable creatures only in such a room, but that applies to most offensive uses of bridges.

[ribby]

If you made the bridge area a dump then I guess you could end up with tons of items to fling at the goblins

[Loci]

You definitely should make sure to have bridge-flingable creatures only in such a room, but that applies to most offensive uses of bridges.

Instead of one large bridge that can be nullified by large creatures, tile the floor with 1x1 retracting bridges. Sure, the jabberers won't fly, but everything else will still be thrown into the jabberers (which is the most deadly part, anyway). Keep the roof low and you've got a low-maintenance trap that annihilates almost everything.

[Sutremaine]

I'd swap the couple of raising bridges for several retracting ones. A heavy unit (ie. one whose racial size is 1,000,000 or over) will break a lowering bridge, but merely jam a retracting one. I would also put the bridges on solid ground, with open space all around for flung goblins to fall into. The result would be something like a dodge trap, but with enforced dodging and a much slower attack rate.

This would also be semi-automated. Either you could have the lever for the bridges set to Pull/R, or the pressure plate for the bridges attached to a repeater. The lever pulling is quicker, switching the bridges once every ~100 ticks, but the repeater is constant.