It doesn’t matter. Interfering with the field could constitute destruction of the drive. That’s just fiction at that point.
The rationalization is that tidal forces would destroy the drive, which is a difference in gravitational attraction between the near side of the capital and the far side. If a warp drive cannot tolerate that difference, then it cannot function in that environment.
I haven’t done the math to figure out if it could be backed up by real numbers or if it would just be a handwave to say that capitals can’t approach massive bodies. For example, the math might say that a fighter cannot approach a white dwarf because of the tidal forces involved, while a capital could still approach moons of a certain size. Those may not be scenarios that the engine wants to support.
I think the problem is more along the lines of finding a justification that can be consistent while not forcing capitals to spend the entire game a billion kilometers from the nearest body of importance. IIRC, cruisers are intended to be platforms to bombard other capitals and structures: I don’t know if the intent is to include planetary fixtures, but if so the cruisers will have to have some way of getting within range. If you base it on gravitational effects, Jupiter’s gravitational pull is 1g at ~110,000 km. If we assume capitals are not intended to get lower than an earth-equivalent LEO, that means capital ships could never approach a Jupiter-mass body closer than that distance. Continuing to use Jupiter as a reference, that would put all four of its major moons within capital territory.
From a purely “g” related view, this would seem to be viable for Earth-mass bodies and greater. Of course, this presents a few issues: given that gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable, either the ships cannot accelerate faster than 0.9g (and we cannot use artificial gravity to dampen the effects in the room) or we can use artificial gravity to dampen the effects of acceleration (and we can then use that technology to allow us to approach the planet).
You mention tidal forces as a potential limiter, but then a similar issue arises based on rotation. If an object rotates fast enough, the difference in “centripetal forces” across the diameter of the warp drive is no different from the tidal forces of a dense object. This also creates an issue regarding the approach of objects with no significant tidal forces.
There is still ongoing debate as to whether or not capital ships will be allowed to enter atmosphere and if so to what extent based on a planets gravity etc so please don’t consider that set in stone as of this moment in time.
You know it would actually be nice if it was ‘set in stone’, either way. I guess it will be decided with testing and a popularity poll that will follow…
Get someone to spend a week on a design document @inovaekeith, please.
It could be interesting if a warp drive really was sensitive to planets somehow, and stopped functioning after entering planetary bombardment range until repaired. It would require that capital ships commit to a planetary attack, either until successful or until they can get the time in space to repair.