The Excalibur is the most powerful warship class, by far, but it also requires a truly obscene amount of research as it's very close to the end of the tech tree. A fair bit before that are Overlords, Avatars and Rangers, in decreasing order of power, which are all stronger than Dreadnoughts (with Rangers being only somewhat more powerful -- slightly more hp, faster, longer range, +1 defense). If you look in the Data subdirectory of your Galactic Civilizations directory, you can find the ship descriptions in the *.ship files.
Incidentally, the Excalibur's only in the Bonus Pack. Get it if you haven't already, as it's a free download and adds niftyness.
Oh, and for what it's worth -- there's more than just ship class. A ship's power also depends on ---
- Ship experience, which boosts attack, defense and hit points.
- Other tech that the owner has; weapon techs frequently boost attack, for instance.
- Trade goods that the owner has access to. Tri-Strontium Steel boosts hit points, Gravity Accelerators makes them faster.
- Any military resources that the owner has built starbases on. A starbase making full use of a military resource adds +68% each to attack and defense.
- Starship bonuses from the planet where it was built, usually gained from buildings (e.g. advanced quality control) but also possibly from events when colonized (e.g. pirates, if you take the Evil option, can give substantial bonuses).
- Inherent racial bonuses, plus the bonuses permanently added from survey ships running around processing anomalies.
For instance, an Excalibur's *base* attack is 80, but by the time you can build one it'll have an attack rating of far greater than that because it'll be heavily modifed by tech, et al. Likewise, a civilization with a substantial advantage in tech and military resources might have an experienced Battle Hammer defeat a Battleship or possibly even Dreadnought, despite the fact that the latter classes are nominally more powerful.
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