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[Doppel]

Often times i read the advice of using up and down stairs instead of up/down stairs to counter the possibility of a dwarf tumbeling down several z levels to his/her death. Although its unsure if this could happen without the stimulance of a battle near the stairs or water pushing said dwarf. Now, we all love using dwarvenly complex trap constructions via water pushing enemies of a ledge, or hatches dropping them to their deaths or bridge tossing and whatnot. Not many of them are very effective though apart from maybe the idea i was just having, namely making a coridor of nothing but downstairs with *insert gruesome death* beneath them. How i hope it works is that they can be walked upon and with the stimulance of ,say huge amounts of water dropping from above, it would result in a lot of gobbos dropping to their *insert gruesome death*. Did someone else already computed the same idea? Would it work? Am i overlooking obvious spoiler things?

[Gnomechomsky]

A column of nothing but down stairs wouldn't do anything, since they wouldn't connect to each other.  Down needs either an up or an up/down below it, or it's just another kind of floor.  Likewise, up doesn't go anywhere without a down or up/down above it.

[Star Weaver]

What if the tile beneath the down stair is totally empty? E.G., build floors off of a tower and then a freestanding down stair. I imagine nothing would pathfind down it but I wonder if e.g. you could go down it in adventure mode and end up falling from the top of the next square down ... ^_^

[Spey]

wouldnt it just be simpler to build a basic pit trap with a retractable bridge?

instead of going to all the trouble of piping water over goblins in the hopes of them slipping and falling down stairs, why not just drop them directly into a hole

[Doppel]

cause its more fun? 
I was also wondering wether if something is pushed it'll still fall down the downstair even if theres nothing beneath it (ie, nowhere to path), dunno if anyone made a conclusive test concerning this.
Also to go back to why making this trap, if the downstairs tactic works, you could make a continuous waterfall (or several waterfalls behind eachother), kind of like an at all times working trap wich never needs reloading (wich may even catch cloaked invaders?) and thus doesn't need being turned on whenever you get ambushed/sieged, instead turning it off whenever a caravan enters the map.

[Alfador]

cause its more fun? 
I was also wondering wether if something is pushed it'll still fall down the downstair even if theres nothing beneath it (ie, nowhere to path), dunno if anyone made a conclusive test concerning this.
Also to go back to why making this trap, if the downstairs tactic works, you could make a continuous waterfall (or several waterfalls behind eachother), kind of like an at all times working trap wich never needs reloading (wich may even catch cloaked invaders?) and thus doesn't need being turned on whenever you get ambushed/sieged, instead turning it off whenever a caravan enters the map.

If the waterfall works, it would have a definite advantage over a retracting bridge: siegers would always be able to path through it, instead of losing the path when the bridge is retracted. They'd just keep on coming.

Disadvantage: Your dwarves could also path through it, causing unpleasantness.

[MetBoy]

Disadvantage: Your dwarves could also path through it, causing unpleasantness.

Possible answer: set up a more solid inner door between your defensive constructions and the rest of the fortress; this will keep your non-military dwarves from running around the map when you don't want them to.

[Doppel]

If the waterfall works, it would have a definite advantage over a retracting bridge: siegers would always be able to path through it, instead of losing the path when the bridge is retracted. They'd just keep on coming.

Disadvantage: Your dwarves could also path through it, causing unpleasantness.

Exactly. About the disadvantage, it is true that if it works in the first place (wich i don't know yet, gonna try it though) and the waterfall is running at all times (only to be turned off for merchants or immigrants, or not hihihi, "natural waterfall of doom selection"), then its best to not let dwarfs roam about the map. (so, every necesity will have to be inside the walls of your fortress)