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[AlienChickenPie]

I've been toying with this idea, and I'd like to see if anyone had already tested whether or not it works-
The core of the trap is a 2-tall chamber bordered by bridges on all sides. When the proper lever is pulled, all the bridges forming the walls open outward and the bridge forming the floor retracts. This chamber is flooded with water and lava to create a solid projectile, and that projectile is dropped on a solid, stable (no digging anywhere below it) chamber where your enemies are located.
The result should be a cave-in which should obliterate anyone below it and knock out anyone near.

[Foa]

I've been toying with this idea, and I'd like to see if anyone had already tested whether or not it works-
The core of the trap is a 2-tall chamber bordered by bridges on all sides. When the proper lever is pulled, all the bridges forming the walls open outward and the bridge forming the floor retracts. This chamber is flooded with water and lava to create a solid projectile, and that projectile is dropped on a solid, stable (no digging anywhere below it) chamber where your enemies are located.
The result should be a cave-in which should obliterate anyone below it and knock out anyone near.

A drown pit trap, cunning, but if you add some more thinking, you can make an ejection system.

[AlienChickenPie]

It's not a drown pit, it's a drop a solid block of obsidian pit. I may not have described it right, but the idea is to form a solid block of obsidian in a box made of bridges. Said bridges are rolled out of the way and the block of obsidian is dropped on people below.
As for ejection, you could funnel enemies right into the forming chamber, encase them in obsidian and send the whole block tumbling down That could also make it a drowning pit if the water came in first.
This gives me another idea- if HFS is resistant to either water or magma, you could get it into a chamber (solid this time, or they'll break loose), pour the magma, add the water and then have your miners clear the chamber and remove any remains.

[Ascii Kid]

Sort of a really short-range mass-driver.
I like it.  =->

[Agent_Irons]

This is a really good idea, actually. Hmmm. If my masons weren't working overtime on sealing off my fort, I'd build this and see if it works.

It'd be really easy to supersize, too. Make a 3x3 block two stories tall, instead of a 1X1, and place it over your fortress entrance.

[Ascii Kid]

Or, if you could arrange it, build it over your trade depot, or even more interestingly (tho time consuming) carve an "invaders channel" to the edge of your map with a lever to all the bridges linked inside.

[winner]

I don't think I'm understanding

how are you separating the obsidian cube from all nearby walls?

[John Johnston]

That's an interesting idea, I'll schedule some dwarf-time for a trial.   

(edit)
I don't believe it will work, but I'm not sure exactly why at present.  Fun fun fun!   

(edit edit)
I think it would need to be more dynamic.  One large retracting bridge, onto which magma and water are poured at the same time; the bridge then retracts leaving a solid unsupported plug.  You don't need side walls if the bridge is large enough, and indeed I can't think how you would get any way of containing the plug at the sides, I don't think bridges would do it.

(edit edit edit)
With two small chambers above the large bridge, each holding 1 tiles worth of 7/7, one holding water and one holding magma.  Opening both at the same time and swiftly retracting the bridge should drop a mix of water, magma and collapsing stone on the head of anyone below... nasty.

[kurisukun]

The problem lies in getting them to create without also creating obsidian which attaches to the walls at the same time.

What you could do, is create your own little magma pool, at least 2 Z levels Deep, and at least 3x3.

Then you drop water down from the top into the middle section.

This would create a cave-in, which would immediatly drop down, puncture the floor of the pool, killing anything beneath it.

Sadly, then you'd flood the area beneath with lava.

[biomatter]

Won't the surrounding upright bridges prevent the formed obsidian from attaching to walls?

And how much water does it take to cool magma to form obsidian? This is potentially awesome. Cave-ins just make a rock when they fall and break, right? No natural wall left behind?

[d3c0y2]

bridges dont support things, so the obsidian would fall as soona s its formed, probably destroying the birdge or maybe teleporting through. I dont know.

as others have pointed out, Droping the magma and the water at the same time would work, as would having a magma pool with a 7/7 water pond above it.

[Teeto_K]

Won't the surrounding upright bridges prevent the formed obsidian from attaching to walls?

And how much water does it take to cool magma to form obsidian? This is potentially awesome. Cave-ins just make a rock when they fall and break, right? No natural wall left behind?

Natural wall cave-ins leave behind natural wall.

Construction cave-ins leave behind rock.

My suspicion, though I can't confirm it, is that the obsidian could/would attach to the same surface supplying support for the retracting bridge.

You COULD, in theory, make a device that reloads with dorf-intervention:

Build constructed floors on the level under the bridge, and place a support in the middle of those constructed floors. If the water always pours directly onto the obsidian block, it may be supported by the support underneath.

Then, you mine/channel out the edges of the plug.

Then, a lever retracts the bridge, and another removes the support.

Rebuilding requires replacing the floors, the support, and remining the plug.

Questions:

Does a support provide support through a bridge that is deployed?

If it does, and you form solid obsidian on said support, what happens to the bridge when you channel the obsidian floor that is resting on it?

If the answer is "Nothing", then this can work.

[Time Kitten]

If you don't mind a little splashing lava, you can have it drop down at the same time a reservoir of water a few z levels above.

Goblin Goblinson: Ach! I is on fire!  Water!

SPLASH

Goblin Goblinson cancels panic; encased in obsidian.

[Eatnobles4breakfast]

what you could do is have a room made of fire-safe bridges, and this room automaticly fills with magma. above it is a room always full of water. you link the floors to levers, and the top one drops the water an instant before the magma (by using diff quality mechanisms) and all this falls onto the gobbies. also, when the lever is pulled, the magma and water stop flowing.
then it's like the uber atom smasher...! i have got to try this out...

[AlienChickenPie]

A problem suggested here was the uncertainty around obsidian formation on bridges. As far as I know, obsidian can form when water is dropped on lava, and the result is a cave-in sending the new block of obsidian to the bottom. This means obsidian can form on an unstable surface and let gravity take it from there.
This means there are two results I can expect from my original design-
1. Solid chunk of obsidian teleports through the bridge after formation- Great
2. Solid chunk of obsidian crashes through the bridge- Less great
If #2 is bound to happen, you can improve the design by turning the floor into a single support surrounded by bridgework. This way, you only have to replace one tile every run, and you can do it from the accessible killing level.
Ideally, you won't have to replace a single tile, ever, and the trap would keep working until its supplies run out.
The best way to achieve this would be to mix the water and the magma in mid-air. If liquids experience acceleration and don't just float down at a constant speed, this could be a simple matter of pooling the water, releasing it and releasing the water a moment later.  If they float down at a constant speed, you'd have to do something else. One way would be to drop the magma while having several jets of pressurized water firing sideways along the magma's trajectory. This would create plenty of waste water and require drainage, but it should work.