Are there certain positions that either the Rover, Tello, or AVR drone need start from in order to be considered a valid autonomous run, or can they start from any locale as long as it’s right before a scored task? For instance, for an “auton” guided run, does the rover need to start from the building parking structure, the bottom of a hill (or the top of the hill if coming down from completing another task), or simply right before a color landmark? For the Tello, does it have to start an auton run from a landing pad, and end on another landing pad? For the AVR drone, what would constitute an “automated” water drop or even a laser water cannon action? If the AVR drone is to autonomously park at the end, where does it have to start? I can see the autonomous Ref being inundated with requests to monitor “micro” autonomous actions.
Hi I’m Avi! I’m not a game official but I would like to answer some of your questions. Please correct me if I’m wrong 
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If you want to rack up autonomy points with the RVR, it has to drive over the checkpoints found at the bottom of each ramp and in every trench. So any non-autonomous action before going over the first of these checkpoints you decide to go over autonomously is disregarded when looking at your autonomous point bonus. Any non-autonomous action performed after you have initiated autonomy for the RVR will reset any point bonus you have racked up. To cash in on the bonus you rack up, you would need to complete the action of blocking a fire spread path, hitting the water tower, or parking (5.1.5).
I recommend reading over this post I made a while ago that might has some great responses you’re looking for.
Figure 24 in the game manual also has a good depiction of what I’m trying to say.
As stated in the definition of an Autonomous Checkpoint in section 4.2, the Tello has two autonomous checkpoints, one at the fire tower, and one the last mission pad it reaches, AKA “Building 5.” I’m not 100% clear on this but I believe to gain the maximum autonomous point bonus for the Tello, you would need to autonomously reach the last checkpoint, and then autonomously return back to the fire tower, without any outside interaction. Either that or you actually gain your first autonomy checkpoint immediately leaving the fire station. To cash in on this point bonus you would complete the two actions that the Tello can complete, which is finishing the recon path and showing it to the judge, or parking.
In the definition of Autonomous in section 4.2, the status really only applies to support vehicles (Just the RVR and Tello actually, not the Minis). The exception to this definition is only when the AVR drone is dropping water, meaning that the AVR drone cannot gain autonomous points for parking or shooting the LWC. You can review the definition of the autonomous water dropping action under Autonomous Delivery found in section 4.2.
Again, I’m not a game official so I may have gotten something wrong here. Please reply if you have any questions about any of my responses 
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Thank you! That clarified quite a bit.
Of course!! Just remember that I might have gotten a few things wrong and I would wait for an official to verify my post as a solution before applying this information.
All good! We are all in somewhat of a fog until actually being at an event, seeing the field, and playing that very first game. And afterward thinking… Well of course! How else could it be? Or maybe more like… Hmmmm… =)