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[arcturusthelesser]

tree tops count as a floor.

I'm pretty sure this is not true. They count as a wall, but don't create a passable tile on the z-level above.
Anyway, even if it is, you could still have a 1 z-level moat by building a paved road on the bottom, thus inhibiting all plant growth.
It would have to be magma-safe if you wanted to fill it with that fluid. Alternatively, constructed floors are always magma-safe, although they consume way more buildmats than roads, for some reason.

[nickbii]

It's true I've never seen anybody walk across treetops in my moat, but that's because I don't let the dang things grow in my moat.

What I have seen is things that get flung, and land on top of the tree, stay on top of the tree. Until I cut the tree down. Others have reported that when living beings end up on top of  a tree they stay there until the tree gets cut down. So it's pretty clear things can stay on top of treetops. What isn't clear is whether they can move from treetop to treetop.

Has anybody done experiments on this? Does anybody want to do some science on the issue?

[Deadrefridgerator]

Okay, so OP is back, and I've decided to fill my moat back in and make a better one later.

The problem is that I have no idea how to fill in a channel.  I've looked around, and there doesn't seem to be any construction suited for the purpose.

[arcturusthelesser]

Okay, so OP is back, and I've decided to fill my moat back in and make a better one later.

The problem is that I have no idea how to fill in a channel.  I've looked around, and there doesn't seem to be any construction suited for the purpose.

There is no way to fill it with soil again, and there's no way to completely fill it up again. The closest you could go would be to (very carefully, so as to not get cancellation spam) gradually wall in every tile, and then once there's only one open tile left, floor it, leaving one tile of empty space below that floor (you can't wall the last tile because the builder would have no place to stand)

It's true I've never seen anybody walk across treetops in my moat, but that's because I don't let the dang things grow in my moat.

What I have seen is things that get flung, and land on top of the tree, stay on top of the tree. Until I cut the tree down. Others have reported that when living beings end up on top of  a tree they stay there until the tree gets cut down. So it's pretty clear things can stay on top of treetops. What isn't clear is whether they can move from treetop to treetop.

Has anybody done experiments on this? Does anybody want to do some science on the issue?

I think that the pathing would be different. Consider how units sometimes get stuck in midair, I think that's the same sort of thing, except less buggy. I assume that next update will have some sort of passable trees with climbing, though. Anyway, it's not that hard to keep trees out of your moat in the first place.

[Loci]

Regarding the climber issue, I currently surmise that the logic for how to climb will be pretty much the same as it is for Minecraft's spiders and Lemmings' climbers. Specifically, if assembled so that there is a ledge, it would be impossible to pass said ledge.

Here's what Toady said in a FotF post:

There are some odd conditions with overhangs -- I think they can negotiate an overhang one tile wide if the tile above is a wall and not a floor, since the game lets them advance their hold up the wall and around in that direction -- there's a missing case right now of being able to hold a thin ledge without a wall underneath (where you'd be hanging in the air down and to the side probably), which may or may not make it in depending on how much of a headache it is.

So an overhanging floor *might* work, but an overhanging wall will not.

It has to be two-deep because trees grow 1 Z-level high, and tree tops count as a floor. So if you're one-deep, a dry moat, and you're in a heavily forested area and you don't send a lumberjack to clear out the trees every 5-10 years there'll be a couple spots where a gobbo can walk across the tree-tops right into your fort.

Nope; creatures cannot normally move into a tile above a tree. That said, any creature that ends up in such a tile *can* move to an adjacent non-tree-top tile. So it is possible for a goblin to dodge onto a tree, then step out on the other side.

[nickbii]

It has to be two-deep because trees grow 1 Z-level high, and tree tops count as a floor. So if you're one-deep, a dry moat, and you're in a heavily forested area and you don't send a lumberjack to clear out the trees every 5-10 years there'll be a couple spots where a gobbo can walk across the tree-tops right into your fort.

Nope; creatures cannot normally move into a tile above a tree. That said, any creature that ends up in such a tile *can* move to an adjacent non-tree-top tile. So it is possible for a goblin to dodge onto a tree, then step out on the other side.

So if your moat's two tiles wide you don't care about trees, because nobody can dodge two squares, but a one-tile-wide moat had damn well better be two-z-levels deep. Good to know for quick-and-dirty moats.

[Loci]

So if your moat's two tiles wide you don't care about trees, because nobody can dodge two squares, but a one-tile-wide moat had damn well better be two-z-levels deep. Good to know for quick-and-dirty moats.

Actually, creatures can dodge through multiple tiles at a time. You see it most with weapon traps; a skilled dodger can leap across entire rooms by dodging consecutive attacks. So, assuming a very lucky goblin happened to dodge two bolts that arrived near-simultaneously, he could potentially make it across your moat. But that outcome is very unlikely.

I find one-tile moats sufficient. Although an enemy may rarely make it across, even a fledgling military can deal with a single threat. Usually, once one of my dwarves dodges into the moat and gets stuck, I go through and cut down all the trees (to rescue the dwarf), then use those trees to pave the floor of the moat with roads (to prevent future stuck dwarves).