Beam laser

Yari (槍, ) are powerful directed-energy laser weapons mounted on the larger Imperial Navy starships. They are devastatingly powerful, capable of cutting deep into the hulls of armoured starships, overloading energy shields and potentially cutting unarmoured starships in half.

Technology and usage
Yari are fired from Yari arrays on starships, which are usually mounted on broadsides. These are hidden beneath armoured panels that can slide open when needed. The arrays themselves appear to be bright red hexagonal panels on the sides of starships, with the mirrors and emitters actually underneath the red panels.

When a Yari is fired, the energy almost instantaneously arces towards the target as calculated by dozens of supercomputer banks. Energy bleed-off in the form of a red coloured light follows the energy beam a few nanoseconds behind the invisible cutting beam, and the bleed-off is commonly believed to be the beam itself. Yari consume a large amount of energy.

Yari are reputed to be extremely accurate, more so than any other weapon in the Imperial Navy's arsenal. Even so, they are more suited for attacking unmoving targets such as space stations, space platoforms, ground targets or stationary starships than moving targets during the heat of battle. Yari are a frightening and formiddable ambush weapon and an opening salvo that can easily shock an enemy into surrender from long ranges, allowing ships to act as snipers against enemy planetary defenses.

The Yari most commonly used by Imperial starships at present in the Type-91 "Long Lance" beam laser.