Dual seat fighters could easily be reduced to single seat with a built in robot-brain. It would be less onerous since it is still directed by a sophont in the craft.
It depends if the ship is a regular fighter with a droid crew (virtual crew is way too expensive), or the whole thing is a robot. I am not sure the RH, HG and the new VH are necessarily aligned and space-going drones cost may not be consistent.
Assuming an HG fighter craft it also depends on the craft itself. For an asteroid hull* the cost of the cockpit is less that KCr20 once you take into account the extra hull, drive etc. The cost allocated to crew will be a small fraction of the cost allocated for weaponry, so going cheap might not be logical.
There are no life support costs for a cockpit. If the pilot is ship based then there will be a life support cost but with frozen watch or a planetary defence fighter the life support cost could be very low. Wages may or may not be a cost (you may not even pay your crews a salary - service guarantees citizenship).
A navy pilot with basic training gets 6 level 0 skills. Pilot and Gunner are directly applicable. With decent DEX these could be operating at competent professional Level 1 or 2 even for a flight school washout. A Navy Academy graduate pilot could be operating at Level 3 in the important skills before they even enter the service.
For a droid, in order to get level 1 in those skills you are paying KCr's at level 1, KCr10's at level 2 and KCr100's at level 3. To run skills at that level is going to need a brain costing KCr10's. Basic brains need to be directed fairly closely and you would need at least 2 to cover just the basic skills needed. That means you are looking at Advanced brains and as pointed out at lower tech levels those are really expensive.
The sophont pilot comes with other skills that are potentially less useful, but could still be important, Electronics from background skills for sensors for example, that would need more software "just in case" or risk not having skills when needed. The sophont can be enhanced to DM+1 with cheap expert packages. The sophont can also go beyond their "fly plane, shoot guns" role definition making them more flexible. For a droid to have that flexibility requires more software, bandwidth etc. A sophont pilot can attempt any skill difficulty, but software is limited in the complexity that it can even attempt.
I like cheapo droids (basic brains) as opponents as I can run them with a simple flow chart and not have to overthink the situation. I also have indentured servicemen in my evil empire that are cheaper to replace than the ship itself (building a droid needs facilities, knowledge and money, making a person just needs two idiots with raging hormones and a bottle of Buckfast). Training pilots is not much of a cost when you are operating at that sort of mentality, it is also a way of controlling the more aggressive members of society. I also use convict soldiers and dirt cheap clones**.
*Given the extra armour that gives you it is not a bad starting point if you are looking to save cost. A thrust 6 dual seater will cost less than MCr2 with half that cost being the weapon system.
** Evil empires can built clones at the cost price of KCr10 per clone. Once you have paid for the template you can churn out identical clones with STR, DEX, END and INT stats in the 9+D3 level at the same price point. In 18 months, without any extra for education they can have 2 skills at level 1. Statistically 1 in 3 is DEX 12 making Pilot and Gunner checks at DM+2. They are fully indoctrinated, utterly loyal and by the time they have worked out they are being used, they are wearing out. A few high risk missions generally eliminates the ones starting to go "off-piste".
