Heavy blaster rifles employed a powerful, sometimes concentrated blaster gases, advanced XCiter technologies, upgraded Galven circuitry, and precision-ground focusing crystals to achieve their longer range, beam cohesion, and energy output. A key divider between standard rifles and heavy rifles was the option to make them fully automatic, however, over the course of galactic history, a number of semi-automatic weapons, often high-powered sniper rifles, were classified as heavy blaster rifles, and were regulated as such.