Despite the Advent's reputation as being less adept at slug-fests than the other races, the Radiance is a good battleship. It performs well in slug-fests with enemy ships, and like any battleship-class capital, it is very good at clearing pirates out of planets in the early game. In fact, it may even be more efficient than the TEC's great Kol in this regard, because the shielding regenerates better than the Kol's hull, allowing the Radiance to repeatedly take on pirates without having its actual hull damaged.
Offensively, the Radiance has two solid abilities. One is called Detonate Antimatter, and it does what it says. This is a channeling ability, which means that you must have the Radiance focus on it and not use other abilities during its duration. Fully upgraded, it can do up to 600 points of damage (bypassing shields) and drain up to 180 points of anti-matter. This is great against capital ships. The Radiance also has an outstanding Ultimate Ability called Cleansing Brilliance, which is another channeling ability that does damage to all ships caught in the beam. Any ship caught in the beam for the duration of the ability will receive 2000 points of pre-mitigation damage. This is one of the better direct-damage ultimate abilities in the game.
Defensively, the Radiance has Energy Absorptive armor, which converts damage taken into anti-matter and increasing the ship's armor. This is good largely because it is a permanent ability, so it costs no anti-matter and is always in effect. Finally, the Radiance has Animosity. It works just like a taunt in an MMORPG. All enemy vessels in range will immediately turn their attention to the Radiance. This is a very situational ability that isn't great if the Radiance is your only capital, but becomes much better if you're using the Radiance along with other capitals.
