I am by no means super good at researcher, but I think I’ve gotten most of the basics.
For botany, just follow the rollout guide (this one Botany Rollout for Research Contracts, Visual Guide - #4 by Megaddd ) it’s what I use. Botany is just for points and is sadly a necessity if you want to make anything good. The guide shows you why you do specific steps; but it basically boils down to: “These plants are good, modify them with genes from wheat and limes to make them better, then plant them up and pour radium until they yield chemicals we need to scan, dump Diethylamine and congrats; If you don’t get it GG go again.”
For the actual meat and potatoes, the best way is to have a teacher or at least shadow someone who knows what they’re doing. Besides that, the best way to learn is to actually understand what the papers mean, what properties do what, and what are good properties to add onto a base (and what a good base paper is for that matter.)
Once you get that, the giant synthesis machine becomes a bit more clearer to understand; but the real way to get it is just to add something onto a paper, or relate it for a similar property just to see how it works. There’s no substitute for experience, if you’re really hesitant just go during a solo researcher round/after marines win, do some easy contracts for points if you’re missing some, and just play around with the machine - hell you could just go on a test server and give yourself a research grant of like 999999 credits.
Also don’t worry, processing xenos is easy peasy. Just cut them open, shove the organ in the blender, and boom now you can make some cool shit.