Factorio Forums

Starting a new game following the online Players Strategy Guide...

I'm collecting a massive amount of all four resources (minus fuel right now) using Burner Mines and Stone Furnaces.

Now I'm trying to create a simple belt system with inserters to feed all of the Burner Mines and Stone Furnaces.

I'm trying to craft a switcher but I don't see one.

I'm assuming I need to research it?

How do the Tech Trees work? Do I just click Research and wait or do I need to be crafting a bunch of those red and green research bottle thingies?

What do I do with the tech research bottle thingies after they are crafted?

Hey, hopefully I can help answer your questions.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by switchers, but I'm going to assume you mean Splitters. And yes you need to research those with the Logistics research.

To research something you need to select it and hit the research button to start it. However you will need the required amount of research packs (bottles). You can tell the cost by looking at the research. You will see a time, number of packs, and then at the end something that says X10 for example. That end part means it takes that many cycles to complete, so for that example it would take 10 cycles. Now if it only said it needed 1 red science bottle, you need to multiply that by the number of cycles. So you would need 10 bottles.

To actually do the research you will need a Science Lab. You place it down and make sure it has power, and then put the research bottles into it and it will start doing the research you selected.
Hop that helped. This stuff is explained a bit better in the guide, so that might help you as well.

Awesome. Thanks!

And get rid of the burner drills and injectors. You can build a power plant pretty early. One water pump, fourteen boilers and ten engines are the perfect mix, but you can easily connect two boilers and an engine to automatise the power plant and have some surplus energy.

You won't miss the hassle to refill burner injectors.