The Silvershot is a type of long range rifle that is primarily used by assassins or military teams mostly for anti-vehicle crew killing.  They are a type of rail gun that launch a connecting Sabot round.  They have the advantage of rail guns over coil/gauss guns in that they are more powerful and can take more abuse, but use far more material off an ammo block and are not as numerous in terms of projectiles.

Silvershots are used for extreme distance elimination of targets, but unlike Rail Rifles shoot much faster; they are smaller, lighter and do not deliver nearly as much kinetic energy as a result, but unlike just a ‘dumb’ mass that is launched, Silvershots use a type of smart slug that detects when it has passed through armor or broken through a shield and detonates immediately.

What this means in practice, is a Silvershot could punch through a hovertank or similar armed vehicle, and detonate inside either killing the crew or disabling enough electronics to render it useless.  This has the bonus of occasionally being able to recover the enemies technology, or on killing missions can disable vehicles faster.

Though mostly an anti-vehicle weapon given its round, can still easily kill regular targets given the size and speed of the projectile and its rail gun heritage.

Silvershots are more tactical and specialized compared to the Rail Rifle.  They are capable of shooting about as fast as a modern day assault rifle which actually is ‘slow’ compared to many other projectile weapons.  In this case though the focus in more on powerful rounds delivered on target compared to blanketing the field as a Sweep Rifle does.

 

 

Trivia:

Agrest from Project: AKRA switches to a Silvershot after it is clear he needs more rounds downrange and the prevalence of drones and robotic enemies.

Railith from Eu-Knight uses a modified Silvershot rifle, thinking it is a magical weapon for its power.

The Silvershot weapon was based on a hereto incomplete story of an assassin that befriends a girl with precocious Psionic abilities.  The story takes place at a city called Silvershot and the characters are Rize and Rayne, this is also subtly referenced by Gauge having two small pistols named after these characters.