As Probert explained, 'That's probably something that I came up with, simply to allow for clearer access to free hydrogen that those collectors have to. I'm talking about the power combs, not necessarily the Bussard collectors but the bulk of those combs have an energy path between them.' This would seem to negate Franz Joseph's transport/tug design - at least when it's towing transport pods, which are positioned between the warp nacelles.
As Andrew Probert explained in this web site's 2005 interview, 'As far as the line-of-sight requirement, that was my edict, that, in order to be codependent, the warp engines had to see each other, totally.
So in the same breath he negated three-engined dreadnoughts along with the single-engined destroyers, on the edict simply that, to achieve warp drive, you had to have codependent warp engine pairs.' As Andrew Probert explained in this web site's 2005 interview, 'Gene specified to me, in fact, that starship warp engines operate in pairs. As listed here at Bernd Schneider's Ex Astris Scientia web site, the rules are as follows: Sometime just prior to or during the production of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek fans became aware of what are known as Roddenberry's Rules of Starship Design.
