Jonathan_S wrote:Though unless your technology also includes something like Honorverse grav plates - an artificially gravity field that can be adjusted almost foot by foot throughout a ship I'd think that being that close to a small black hole would be a bit disorienting. You'd have a gravity gradient down the length of the ship - the bow at 6m from the hole is experiencing 1g but the stern isn't (though it's being pulled towards the bow at that acceleration because the ship's structure would be strong enough to handle that stress).
Not necessarily that big a gradient when done right. Consider if the hole is projected ahead of a long gantry connected to the ship proper to avoid the worst effects of the gradient. The gantry will be heavily influenced by the hole, thus pulling the rest of the ship along. Of course, this means that you have limited yourself to how fast you can accelerate without making a paste of the crew.
To utilize the gravitational pull from an artificial black hole in the most efficient and practical manner and avoiding gravitational sheers/gradients a spherical cap design with the hole being equidistant from all parts of the ship seems to be the best design in my opinion if you have a narrow limit on what gravitational gradients you want to deal with.