Klajan

I usualy try to place the RCS-Thrusters at each end of the craft and then disable unnessecary Thrusters once the craft is docked. For smaler crafts that may be unneccessary, but for larger crafts you should do this (unless you don´t have a problem with burning 2-3 units per second of RCS-Fuel while manuvering) Also do not use ASAS to stabalize larger crafts, as this will create a lot of wobble, burning high amounts of RCS-Fuel, rther try to stop the movment manualy and then let the SAS do the rest.

As far as my testing goes this is not the case. I tryed preplaced docking ports and regular docked docking ports, also disabeling and reenabeling fuel crossfeed, and it did not transfer the fuel automaticly to the other tanks. I tryed to achive this for my interplanetary ship, but the fuel does not want to flow, so I have to transfer it manualy. As for the part count, With bigger stages (~800 total parts) I usualy let mechjeb do the job, since I do not enjoy flying with low framerates.

The Shielded Docking Ports will dock with every other docking Port, except for the junior ports. Also you don´t have to extend the dockingport out, as the shield doors have no hitbox.

You need to turn the docking port in the right position, then it will snap.