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[QuantumMenace]

As some of you know, some types of furniture and traps that require a floor do not check for support after built. Constructing a wall, building the furniture on top of it, and removing the wall will leave it hovering.

Curious about what would happen to a sleeping dwarf when his bed suddenly had no floor under it, I tried this. The results: the dwarf falls out of bed, wakes up, and does not get a negative thought from it! The wall can then be rebuilt, allowing the bed to be used again. This has potential for cutting down on the downtime of an important dwarf, but it has limited utility because it takes a while to deconstruct the wall.

The same floor-removal trick also applies to drawbridges, which require a floor on one edge in order to be built. A hovering drawbridge can serve as support for retracting bridges. Anyone up for ominously floating magma cauldrons above your entrance?

Liquids will trigger a pressure plate without a floor under it (haven't tested falling/flying creatures). May be useful for fluid/mechanical logic, where the pressure plate is built at the output of a screw pump, and the water will fall below and clear the tile immediately when the pump stops. Another option is to drop a block of water many z-levels, triggering a pressure plate at each step, perhaps linked to spikes that activate in a wave pattern for an adventurer to try to outrun!

Any other ideas to take advantage of this "feature" while it exists?

[NewSheoth]

Easily reusable noble elimination device, anyone?

[ElthMysterius]

This could be useful in hospitals, when you need to slightly re-injure dwarves so the doctors re-diagnoses them. Just drop 'em a couple of Z-levels!

[NewSheoth]

Ain't hard to find a use for such great inventions of dwarven physicists.
Nice job finding it, QuantumMenace.

[slothen]

especially useful in hospitals.  It means I don't have to deactivate and designate a new hospital zone when I want a dwarf to take a short fall.

[slothen]

the bridge thing is interesting.  Also you could build an epic multi-z level window with it, although you could do that anyway by putting in floors.

[QuantumMenace]

Unfortunately, creatures don't seem to be able to see upward/downward through windows even without floors, which ruined my attempt to make a pitted animal spot downward while protected from arrows. Creatures don't even appear to see through floor grates either, for whatever reason.

[Brandstone]

If this works for upright spikes, then deep pit traps just got even better. Imagine a goblin falling ten z-levels and encountering 100 spikes along the way.

[QuantumMenace]

I tried it with weapon traps, but all I got was the combat report from the falling impact.

[Urist Da Vinci]

I tried it with weapon traps, but all I got was the combat report from the falling impact.

Falling creatures or creatures in "projectile mode" are protected from being attacked, targeted, seen, or even magma as long as they are in flight. There was a bug that could result in creatures permanently in this mode (it had something to do with saving the game?) and they would be in stasis. *searches* Link: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=45586.0

[Musashi]

And now, I know what to do with my next hospitals. Best euthanasia method ever! Cheap, easily replaceable, quick to implement, and does not leave big smears of blood/mud/water/magma to be cleaned off (I love magma as much as the next dorf, but that thing is slightly inconvenient when there are burnable things in the room). Sure, it's not as fast as a pull of the lever... unless you make the "floor" chess-patterned and hold walls with supports.

[Urist Da Vinci]

As some of you know, some types of furniture and traps that require a floor do not check for support after built. Constructing a wall, building the furniture on top of it, and removing the wall will leave it hovering.

...

Any other ideas to take advantage of this "feature" while it exists?

I had a wall built over a pit. A cat cage was then placed on top of the wall and hooked up to a lever. The wall was removed. The cat cage stayed floating. I then had a dwarf pull the lever. The cage and mechanism appeared beside where the cage was placed, on solid ground, so they could be retrieved. The cat appeared over the pit. Gravity ensued.

Many of you know how, in order to pit goblins or other dangerous creatures, a dwarf has to remove them from the cage first? You can build the cage next to a hole to minimize the travel distance and the risk of escape, but there is still risk (especially if you are trying to pit goblin snatchers). If you build the cage somewhere and pull a lever to release the contents, you can't put a death trap on the same tile as the cage, so the creature has to walk onto a weapon trap or something to be executed.

The hovering cage feature allows you to pit* any creature that you can cage, 100% risk free*, and even retrieve the cage and mechanism immediately!

*We assume you won't try to pit a flying creature

You could also build floating, troll-safe, war dog dispensers outside.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Furthermore, I was able to build floating floodgates that open/close with a lever. This may advance dwarven computing or traps, as a floating floodgate would permit fluid flow on all 6 faces/sides.

EDIT: However, when I build floating doors over a 1x1 pit, dwarves and pets "know" that they can't walk through it and path around. I was hoping that they wouldn't notice the open space until they open the door and fall in...

[Hans Lemurson]

What about...floating HATCHES!!!

[Urist Da Vinci]

What about...floating HATCHES!!!

I'm not near my game at the moment, but hatches can already be built over open space, so I suspect they actually bother to check for edge support. Maybe the same for grates.

I just realized that floating floodgates/"bridge walls" could be used in making a better "cave-in cannon" (devices that mix water and magma to form obsidian in midair). Some cave-in cannon designs suffer because the obsidian attaches to the weapon and plugs up the muzzle. Floating bridges or floodgates could support fluids without being able to support obsidian walls, so they couldn't jam.