This comes up a lot so I figured I'd make sure I understand correctly. I assume no, the "bonus attack" header doesn't work for other effects that grant a bonus attack.
Veteran Turret Gunner and Bistan are not very useful to a huge ship that doesn't have a Turret Upgrade equipped. It can already fire its Bonus Attack headers once each, and a gunner doesn't bypass the energy cost to fire them. But can a gunner or other source of a bonus attack even choose a hardpoint's "Bonus Attack" header as the attack for the bonus attack it grants?
For VTG or Bistan it's a mindless question since there's nothing to gain by doing so. However, Ezra offers dice modification under very specific circumstances: you somehow have to do the bonus attack and get a stress token, which isn't easy on a huge ship that just absorbs stress with energy. Ezra's so hard to pull off it's almost moot... but Ezra + Saw + Maul stupidly can do so if they deplete enough energy, and if one were devoted enough to a stupid niche build to deploy them, haha!
And if we ever get another gunner that granted a bonus attack with a dice mod, it'd matter whether we could use that with, oh I don't know, a Turbolaser.
So since it comes up a lot anyway, I'd like to get this cemented into my brain: can a bonus attack choose a hardpoint? Or does a bonus attack from Bistan or Ezra or VTG etc have to just be a normal Attack header (e.g. Dorsal Turret, Ion Cannon Turret, primary weapon, etc)?
(again, I suspect no, but I may be misremembering the rules so I felt I should ask)