Pathfinder

The Interstellar Commonwealth's explorer-weight ship is the Pathfinder-class. Individually, each ship is somewhere between an Excelsior-A and an Ambassador, having the weapons of the former and in-between endurance, but most of everything else being equivalent to the latter. The Pathfinder is a rough match for the capital-grade ships of most powers, including Starfleet, the Romulans, and the Klingons, and is an exceptionally tough ship overall. Unlike most powers, however, Pathfinders are not found alone: like the smaller Guardian cruisers, they operate in squadrons of three or four ships. A squadron of Pathfinders is a very high concentration of force in the modern galaxy, and would be able to overwhelm the system defenses of most worlds known to the Federation unless ships were assembled specifically to oppose them. They represent a similar concentration of scientific and diplomatic resources.