[grumbler]

Some black holes have a gravity of three, so just increasing colony ships to three doesn't work. You'd have to increase it to four, and then they are the same speed as every other ship. Actually you could just increase the hull size by one or two engines-worth and keep the same engines per move (since it is the lack of space after required components that keeps them slow).

I must admit that I never saw Black Holes as being a vital component of SE IV play, but if you want to have the real equivelent then get rid of them and increase the chances of getting one of the Hyperspace sectors that cause damage. That's not B5 canon either, but at least it is closer than "black hole" systems. Whether you made it out of the hyperspace sector without critical damage is a matter of luck.