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Description
Having undergone several failures, project "March Blue" finally avoided 'grounded' status only after the successful transfer of 'HV Astraeus', Earth biggest heavy transport to the date. The teleportation took the 20,350,000 metric tons super-freighter from Moon orbit to Mars orbit almost instantly. This magnificent moment that happened almost ten years ago marked the dawn of the 'Shifter' vessel types.

Nicknamed 'summoner' due to the uncanny ability to bring ('summon') reinforcements within seconds from, and to, -almost- anywhere, the Shifter has became one key element employed by Motherworld Fleet to mobilize its forces and better emphasize their domination throughout the skies and all of the Outworld colonies. Relief taskforces and invasion groups can now be sent out much faster onto designated target.

The Summoner, however, is not without flaw. As most of its structures are devoted to house Stellardrives generators, the Shifter is left with no weaponry aside from powerful jammers, and must rely on other battleships for protection and escort. Another matter is that while in Shift Mode -the process of stabilizing teleportation field and transfer target vessels from or to destination- the ship must remain stationary for a certain period of time. This is its most vulnerable moment, in which any disruption made while the transfer is in progress could destroy both the Shifter and the vessels that are being transported in or out -as once happened to prototype number Beta-03 and Echo-05B. Furthermore, the enormous energy signature emitted during transfer of heavy or numerous vessels at once might alert enemy sensors and potentially negate the element of surprise. The commander must take this into account when planning to deploy the whole armada.

Another -unverified- project codenamed "March Black" is rumored to further enhance the Shifter that it may also able to camouflage any ship within range from both visual and radar or sensor detection while still maintaining its capability to 'summon' the entire fleet.

Despite all the stories, many still believe that the teleportation feat is nothing more than a widely and perfectly executed hoax officially spread by the Earth central government (a.k.a the Motherworld) as a mean to deter any of its colony that fond of straying from their supposed path.

As promised, this is a more detailed view of the starship that appeared on [Part 21] , made with Blender, plus GIMP and Inkscape for composing the 3 view drawings and final touch. Apart from the image quality, one big difference is that this one is rendered in Cycles (the previous one is in BI). I had to convert, because there are still few more new designs to be made, and creating the blue wing thingies glowing effects in BI is a world of pain (loootsa lamps, yay!), while I can easily create it using plane object with emission shader in Cycles.

The conversion, however, is another world of pain, as it is not as simple as just switching the render engine option in a click. I had to remake all the textures again, yay. CYCLES, WHY YOU NO MAKE MY LIFE EASIER... That, PLUS the starfield effect has also extinct so I used the technique [here] to create the starry BG. Still got much to learn though, Cycles is still a mystery for an Internalist like me... but here's the result, rendered with 500 samples.

More stories relating to the setting which this ship appeared can be seen on AoL prologue [#1] and [#2] .

Feels like it took a decade, also taking into account for those art-less IRL works that get in the way...

Description
Having undergone several failures, project "March Blue" finally avoided 'grounded' status only after the successful transfer of 'HV Astraeus', Earth biggest heavy transport to the date. The teleportation took the 20,350,000 metric tons super-freighter from Moon orbit to Mars orbit almost instantly. This magnificent moment that happened almost ten years ago marked the dawn of the 'Shifter' vessel types.

Nicknamed 'summoner' due to the uncanny ability to bring ('summon') reinforcements within seconds from, and to, -almost- anywhere, the Shifter has became one key element employed by Motherworld Fleet to mobilize its forces and better emphasize their domination throughout the skies and all of the Outworld colonies. Relief taskforces and invasion groups can now be sent out much faster onto designated target.

The Summoner, however, is not without flaw. As most of its structures are devoted to house Stellardrives generators, the Shifter is left with no weaponry aside from powerful jammers, and must rely on other battleships for protection and escort. Another matter is that while in Shift Mode -the process of stabilizing teleportation field and transfer target vessels from or to destination- the ship must remain stationary for a certain period of time. This is its most vulnerable moment, in which any disruption made while the transfer is in progress could destroy both the Shifter and the vessels that are being transported in or out -as once happened to prototype number Beta-03 and Echo-05B. Furthermore, the enormous energy signature emitted during transfer of heavy or numerous vessels at once might alert enemy sensors and potentially negate the element of surprise. The commander must take this into account when planning to deploy the whole armada.

Another -unverified- project codenamed "March Black" is rumored to further enhance the Shifter that it may also able to camouflage any ship within range from both visual and radar or sensor detection while still maintaining its capability to 'summon' the entire fleet.

Despite all the stories, many still believe that the teleportation feat is nothing more than a widely and perfectly executed hoax officially spread by the Earth central government (a.k.a the Motherworld) as a mean to deter any of its colony that fond of straying from their supposed path.

As promised, this is a more detailed view of the starship that appeared on [Part 21] , made with Blender, plus GIMP and Inkscape for composing the 3 view drawings and final touch. Apart from the image quality, one big difference is that this one is rendered in Cycles (the previous one is in BI). I had to convert, because there are still few more new designs to be made, and creating the blue wing thingies glowing effects in BI is a world of pain (loootsa lamps, yay!), while I can easily create it using plane object with emission shader in Cycles.

The conversion, however, is another world of pain, as it is not as simple as just switching the render engine option in a click. I had to remake all the textures again, yay. CYCLES, WHY YOU NO MAKE MY LIFE EASIER... That, PLUS the starfield effect has also extinct so I used the technique [here] to create the starry BG. Still got much to learn though, Cycles is still a mystery for an Internalist like me... but here's the result, rendered with 500 samples.

More stories relating to the setting which this ship appeared can be seen on AoL prologue [#1] and [#2] .

Feels like it took a decade, also taking into account for those art-less IRL works that get in the way...