I've found a work-around to the infinite gathering resources(coal pile, wooden crates, etc) after enabling fast research: wait till work shift starts, enable fast research, keep game speed at slowest without pausing, send only 1 worker/engineer to collect gathering resource (make sure there's available people to go to work, i.e. if you have 10 different building queued for construction, chances are workers won't be available until they finished construction first). This way each gathering point will only yield about 3~4k resource then instantly despawn. 3~4k imo is a good kick starter to your colony and won't ruin the whole game by busting your storage capacity indefinitely. Also I've noticed that sometimes fast research interferes with coal mines/saw mills and the like as well, so I'd recommend pausing production first, wait till work shift starts, keep game at slowest speed while doing a series of fast research exploits, then turn off fast research and continue with all other activities. Enjoy!