No, I don't. I'm just calling bullshit on your claim that "all the early TNG alien ships obeyed the rule". The rule simply does not apply at all to the early TNG alien ships, save for the Warbird, so your use of "all" makes your statement maliciously false.
It's disturbing that you would take a statement that at its worst would be inaccurate or overly broad and attribute "maliciousness" to it. It is natural, not malicious, to defend one's position when challenged. I would not have made the statement if I thought it was untrue. However, to be fair, I did not perform some kind of through review of every ship in the first few seasons. My statement is my general impression rather than conclusive fact, but you have offered no convincing argument to the contrary, other than offering your own vague impressions.
Beyond that, all the ship models seen in the first two seasons were capable of quick interstellar flight, even (and especially) those that were quoted to be sublight only. The models either did double duty within said seasons already, or were observed going interstellar in later episodes. Did any of them have nacelles?
There are ships that have no nacelles and ships that are shown to be warp capable. Should be simple for you to cite the overlap.
The Straleb ship sorta did, even if without any "warp glow", the port one invisible to the starboard one.
The Straleb is one of the vessels I addressed earlier. The script never explicitly states that it has warp capabilities. Furthermore, the fact that Okana can smuggle people from the two factions into each other's territory suggests that the two cultures are in close proximity to begin with.
The Batris had three big cylinders in the aft hull, the middle one obscuring the others from each other even if internal machinery didn't already do that job.
I find no evidence that the Batris was warp capable. It is never stated in the script for the episode ("Heart of Glory"). In fact, it was later redressed as Okana's ship, and is explicitly sublight, and since that ship has the same three engines at the back (because it's a redress), one cannot assume that those are warp engines and thus line of sight does not apply.
By the way, the model used for the Batris was a recycled V freighter, so it wasn't even an original Star Trek ship design.
Perhaps he wanted to, but was thwarted by modelmaking reality? Having an actual observable attempt at line-of-sight may have depended on a variable geometry feature that was not built into the model, the couple of variable geometries included already proving too complex for practical use and hogging too much space inside the model.
Probert has stated it is on multiple occasions that the ship is slightly concave. I've posted a video with footage that shows the underside of the Ferengi Marauder is slightly concave. Someone even posted a picture showing it's concave. And these two 3D models of it are slightly concave:
https://www.yobi3d.com/q/3D-model/Ferengi-Marauder-Full
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2153315
But if you still don't believe, here's an illustration based on the very picture
@Mytran posted:
(Note: Before anyone mentions it, the bump in the middle is the integrated Ferengi shuttle in the neck.)
