Let me make a suggestion about setting your needle first thing each outing.

Most experienced modelers don't close it completely and start over from a mfg suggested opening. It's not just laziness. It's actually more reliable to start an engine with it's last needle setting. Only thing that throws a monkey wrench into that is if the engine hasn't been run since the season has changed. And that's not hard to deal with if you're just slightly experienced.

What you do is think about how the temps have changed since last time you ran the engine. If it's gotten colder, open the needle a bit. If it's gotten warmer, close it a bit. And it'll start more reliably than some mfg's setting because you've found a good setting before for your altitude and climate where you fly. But no matter if you give it a click or two the next is important no matter what.

Once the engine is running, it's always a good idea to open the needle to insure a safely rich setting. How to do that? Open it a couple of clicks (keep in mind how many) and if it speeds up as you richen it up, keep opening it up. You want to make sure the needle is opened until the mixture shows rich. Until it does, the setting isn't safe. When it does show rich, start back. You've insured that your needle adjustment is starting from rich. Now as you start to close the needle and the engine speeds up, you're heading for the optimum setting from a guaranteed safe adjustment.

Bring the needle to where the engine has reached peak and just starts to slow down. You don't know it's at peak until you've leaned it past peak and you discover that by it slowing down. Then open the needle back up a couple of clicks to where it was at your newly discovered peak. And then open it more. How much more?

Pick a number like 3 clicks and test fly. If it seems too lean then land and give it a couple more and test fly again. One outing and you'll know what to do next time. And you've added a check mark to the list of things that measure your "experience" rating.