: I dig the lore for the Phaeton. The Forerunners having what is essentially a
: reskinned helicopter gunship is still a bit uncreative from a design
: standpoint, but it's a bit more justified when they're supposed to be used
: as drones spammed by the thousands. Though I don't really get the point of
: having Soldier pilots when you could just integrate the automation to the
: craft itself.

It sounds like using soldiers was a sort of resource management, instead of creating a special Phaeton AI they can just use the already extensive troubleshooting AI in the soldiers which allows them to pilot any vehicle, its why they can use human and covenant vehicles in the game. The forerunners didn't have to create or change AI they could just use what they already have. Don't take that as the exact reason, but based on what I've seen and read that seems the most likely answer.