Vehicle is not the same thing as a Drone.
Not all vehicles are drones, but all drones are vehicles. The rulebook gives us this definition:
Drones are unmanned vehicles intended to be used remotely by riggers or run autonomously.
As for the gunnery thing, gunnery is not itself a complex action. Nothing in the skill states that it's a complex action. What it is, is that every use of gunnery is a complex action because of the uses.
The relevant rule is on page 183:
A Complex Action is required for shooting weapons mounted on a vehicle in any firing mode.
and another on page 167:
Fire Mounted or Vehicle Weapon
Fire a previously readied mounted or vehicle weapon by taking a Complex Action (see Vehicle Combat, p. 198).
If they decided to put a new type of action in place for gunnery, such as kicking puppies (I can't honestly think of another use that would be applicable), and it's a Simple Action, nothing would contradict that. It's the fact that the weapons are mounted, not that gunnery is being used, that makes it complex.
It's worth noting here that from page 167 we know that mounted weapons that aren't on vehicles are also a complex action. So a manually fired turret mount would still be a complex action even if the guy standing next to it is firing the same machine gun as a simple. In this case, as far as I can tell, the character would use the normal weapon skill for the mounted weapon, but it's still a complex action.
So the argument about targeting autosofts doesn't hold up.
Until properly clarified, I'm going to stick with "they act like normal people, so jumped-in riggers and autonomous drones can use Simple Actions for firing actions" in Missions, because that is the intent I'm reading into the like-flesh-and-blood line.
I think that's a pretty big leap to get to.
The same paragraph that states what that "flesh-and-blood" line also specifically refers you the the special Gunnery and Sensor rules in the combat section. Those rules spell out that it is a complex action to fire mounted weapons.
I would take that line to mean all the combat rules for drone combat are laid out in the Combat Chapter (p.158). Seems to be true as far as I can tell. I was looking in the Rigger section until I read that line.
I don't understand why they would specifically reference rules for using gunnery and state that they use the same rules as other characters if the intent was for them to use different rules that aren't stated in that chapter.
