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[forsaken1111]

Dammit, I abandoned after confirming that it worked. I will repeat it in a bit and get a screenshot, sorry.

It does apparently work though, I was surprised. I may build a tower that hangs down from heaven.

[Reese]

You can't build walls on the top level, that is sure.

can you build floors? more importantly, can you build bridges?  I can see creating large obsidian structures using bridges and a series of pumps...

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the question is, can you get anything at all that can support further constructions to hang off them and create dwarven floating castles?

I need to experiment with this when I get home from work.

[iceball3]

the testing of this could be made much easier in arena mode, but it's already done.

Oh god i just had an awesome idea...
using bluemetal from the other veins around the map, make a hollow tower that extends from an also rewalled bluemetal vein.
this may not be as awesome as the space elevator, but its still an awesome idea.

to further this, make the tower in an evil biome with undead giant eagles, putting a spiral staircase around it. make a doorway on the top. have an adventurer descend the amazing tower going staight down to the bluemetal vein's bottom floor. have a constuction built on a lever controlled support. and now, for some literature.

Spoiler: spoiler (click to show/hide)

diving from the heavens, you may peirce straight to hell

[Khift]

As awesome as the sky fort is, I'm more interested in the practical question here: can building destroyers trash things on z-levels other than theirs? Troll + hatch on top of a stair is a good question, but I'd rather know about flying destroyers taking out hatches that are blocking their flight upwards.

[Akura]

I think fliers do, but the one time I think I saw it happen, it was a hatch above an up stair destroyed by a flying FB. It also took out some bars above, but there was open space for it to fly up, so I don't think that counts.

[TheyTarget]

I dont know if its been said. But someone has to very clearly find out how to make salt water fresh. I've not had trouble with it, but I know alot of people have.

[iceball3]

build a well.
is that clear enough?

[Greiger]

Posting to show intrest and get it on my watched list.

My primary defense from the caverns was quite often a hatch cover 3 or 4 z levels above the cavern floor.  No flying FBs ever went for it,  But I can't be certain I ever had one on the particular cavern levels it was on.

[TheyTarget]

build a well.
is that clear enough?

Jeez way to be a dick

[forsaken1111]

build a well.
is that clear enough?

Jeez way to be a dick

Jeez, way to overreact.

[silhouette]

Screw pumps.
And pump the water into a paved/smoothed place.
Completely smooth/paved, if it touches unpaved/smoothed terrain it shall turn back to salt.

[rmunn]

Just experimented with a small embark: only 5 z-levels above ground, and invasions turned off. Mixed results: it looked promising, but I've yet to find a method that will actually support hanging forts.

I have not yet managed to get to magma (aquifer in the way) but I've been able to build wooden constructions up at the top level. I started with a stair stack (2x2 square of constructed up-down stairs) at all levels except the top. At the top Z-level, you can't build an up-down stair... but you can build a down stair. As for the rest:

You can't build walls on the top level, that is sure.

can you build floors?

Yes. Floors can extend as far as you like away from your stair stack, and provide support to each other.

I built a long chain of wooden floors, then removed the next-to-last in the chain, and the last one caved in. The Top-of-the-World ceiling does NOT provide support to floors.

more importantly, can you build bridges?

Yes. 1x3 retracting bridges built just fine. 1x3 drawbridges could also be designated, though with my limited stone I didn't have enough mechanisms to raise the drawbridge.

the question is, can you get anything at all that can support further constructions to hang off them and create dwarven floating castles?

You can build supports on top of a constructed floor. The support attaches to the Top-of-the-World ceiling, and supports the floor it's on. HOWEVER, this does NOT extend to the Z-level below.

I built a long line of floor tiles on the top Z-level, built a support on the last floor tile, then removed the next-to-last floor tile. Unlike my previous experiment, this time the floor+support combo did NOT fall. There was nothing touching it orthogonally or diagonally, and nothing underneath it -- the only possible place it could be getting support from was the "sky ceiling". But when I built a bunch of walls on the Z-level below (hanging underneath the floor tile), they were not supported by the floor tile above.

The only thing I haven't tried yet is building a wall at Z-1 from the top, then a support at Z-0 on top of the wall. I'll report back once I've tried that.

Edit: That didn't work either. The wall directly under the support stayed in place, but the rest of the walls and floors touching it fell once I removed the last bit of floor connecting them to the stair tower. This proves to my satisfaction that:

1) The "sky ceiling" can provide support for a tile DIRECTLY connected to it (via a support or a wall), and
2) this support does NOT extend to other tiles, unlike "normal" support.

About the only sky construction possible, unless someone else finds something I missed (quite possible since I'm pretty new to DF), would be a "surveillance platform": a forest of supports holding up a floor. But no stockpiles would be possible, which means no booze, which means no dwarves -- not for long, anyway.

[Flaede]

Wow! A lot of activity testing this Top Of The Sky thing out! Everyone wants that Castle in the sky. Has anyone tried casting multiple obsidian tiles, digging some of them out, then seeing if those dug floor tiles are still supported by the remaining obsidian walls? (I don't know how to use the utility you are using to spawn magma up there, or even what it is)

My poor fort crashed, so I have to re-discover caverns in a new fort in order to test megabeast pathing/destruction.

I have a new myth in the same vein:
Fortifications "filter" liquids - ie. creatures can't path through them.

I know that this gets broken just do to the glitches with flows "pushing" things through, but it has been my experience that even deeply submerged fortifications will not block anything, and I wonder about the effectiveness of fortifications blocking flying creatures.  I still see people thinking this works, so can anyone Prove/Bust this myth? Does it only fail with FBs and Titans?

EDIT: I will try to test both at once.

[rmunn]

(I don't know how to use the utility you are using to spawn magma up there, or even what it is)

It's the built-in testing arena. When you start DF, instead of hitting Enter to "Continue Playing", scroll down to the penultimate menu entry, "Object Testing Arena". The game will prompt you to select a RAW folder -- just use the default. You'll then be in arena mode, where the (k) key lets you look around and/or spawn (c)reatures, (l)ava, or (w)ater, wherever you want.

Sadly, there's no possibility of building constructions in arena mode, which limits its usefulness a little. But that's what people are using to spawn lava and water on the same next-to-the-top tile.

[KojaK]

... the fortifications better filter out creatures! That's the only think keeping my magma men from poking their heads through my magma channel!

Although if magma men actively seek things out, then it's confirmed. I have an open staircase leading down to a path open to the magma sea, with only a constructed fortification between. No hatch covers, no grates, no constructions.