One thing is that KSP uses manual staging, so timing of engine burns kind of matter. Is there features in vanilla KSP to automatically trigger staging?
As long as you pay some minimal level of attention this shouldn't be a problem. 10s delays between stages won't prevent something with a minimum TWR of 2 and 4000m/s of combined dv from reaching orbit.
Timing of engine burns matters once you're in orbit, but vanilla KSP had tools to help you plan the basic ones.
During launch, the only real timing or skill involved was knowing when to start turning east (around 10km, imho), and knowing how to keep your speed below the thresholds that air resistance was eating your delta-V (there's charts around to help with that, but it's not hard).
If you're using solid rocket motors that can't be throttled or stopped, you have a bit less control.
Solid rocket motors can be limited to a percentage of their maximum output while you're building the rocket! This really upped my game when I figured it out. I try to plan my first solid booster stage to end before I need to extend the gravity turn into orbit, so I can shed the solid rocket booster mass and make the best use of my liquid booster delta-V, and additionally so the jettisoned solid boosters don't end up in orbit with me.
You can automate this using the in-game programing language, but yes it does require a mod (kOS). I'm assuming/hoping that KSP2 has something similar in vanilla.
It's straightforward though, the documentation is here:
What a fantastic comment. Really highlights what a good job KSP does teaching orbital dynamics through practice and RUDs (imo).
You talkin about this? https://xkcd.com/1356/
Oh no, I mean this: https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
Or this: https://xkcd.com/2712/
"East takes you Out, Out takes you West, West takes you In, In takes you East."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smoke_Ring_(novel)#:~:text...).
The most efficient way to do this would be to just go sideways really fast from the ground. Problem: there's a lot of air in the way. So the right thing to do (again, both in Kerbal and in real life) is to initially go just up, but as the air reduces, gradually switch to moving sideways instead.
Then once you're up there, you need to know the basics of manipulating orbits. Lesson number 1: you can increase the height of your orbit on the opposite side of the planet by increasing your speed in the direction you're currently going. So once you get your apoapsis (highest point) above 100km or so, you can turn off your engines, wait until you get there, then burn hard in the direction you're going and your periapsis (the lowest point of the orbit) will raise up like magic.
You'll be orbiting in no time.