[rjeli]

IIRC when I played KSP it was necessary to point slightly down if you wanted to reach orbit in a continuous burn, rather than waiting to burn more at perigee. Is that true in general?

(was playing with a mod that models ullage, so relighting was quite finicky)

[idlewords]

There's a great Eager Space youtube video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxEy9mDeq40