Applied Energistics 2

## **Synopsis**

Applied Energistics 2 is a mod created by AlgorithmX2 designed to compactly store items in a digital network called Matter Energy, or ME (pronounced Emm-Eee). It is the new and overhauled version of the original Applied Energistics mod. Different devices can be connected to the ME Network, such as an ME Drive, for the storage of items, or an ME Terminal, allowing for access to that storage.

As of September 23, 2014, AlgorithmX2 has resigned as the developer of Applied Energistics 2 and made the mod open source on GitHub.

## **Notification\***

It is important to realize that Applied Energistics 2 (AE2) is a very different mod in the universe of Sky Factory 4 than it is in an isolated modded environment. The main reason for this is because the mod pack has disabled *channels* and removed a block called the *ME Controller* as it would be essentially useless in the absence of channels. The pack has also removed a number of other key elements of the mod such as a resource called *Certus Quartz* and a block called *sky stone*. Sky Factory 4 has instead altered crafting recipes accordingly so that these resources are not needed to progress. As a result, many aspects of the mod have limited usefulness and many of the tutorials or documentation on AE2 that are not made specifically for Sky Factory 4 will not be as useful. This guide will focus on the elements of AE2 which maintain functionality in the universe of Sky Factory 4.

## **Starting Out**

AE2 isn’t the most expensive mod out there, but it definitely isn’t designed for the early game. Before you start to dive in you should make sure you have a decent amount of quartz, iron, redstone, glass, silicon, glowstone, diamonds, lapis, crystallized menril, and ender pearls. You will also need a few machines, including an enrichment chamber and some form of crusher, and the ability to cast liquids (Tinkers’ Construct seared brick smeltery or Tinkers’ Complement porcelain smeltery). You will also need a source of power.

The key to all of the AE2 machines are four crafting components that are made in the Inscriber. To make these components, you will need four corresponding presses: Inscriber Calculation Press, Inscriber Engineering Press, Inscriber Logic Press, Inscriber Silicon Press. All of these presses can be replicated in an Inscriber with the press as the top input, and an iron block as the middle input, but the first time you obtain them you will have to cast them in a casting table by pouring molten tough alloy, molten ferroboron, molten steel, and molten iron respectively over a cobblestone circuit mold. After you have your four presses, you are going to want to make yourself an Inscriber. You are now able to craft logic processors, logic circuits, and all sorts of lovely components you will need for AE2.

## **The Basic Network**

Now comes the fun part. A basic AE2 network consists of a powered Energy Acceptor, an ME Drive or ME Chest, some cable, and a terminal. Your items are stored in items called storage cells which come in four different sizes: 1K, 4K, 16K, and 64K bytes of storage. Regardless of size, each storage cell can only hold 63 unique items. The difference between the ME Chest and the ME Drive is that the chest has a built in terminal, but can only hold 1 storage cell as opposed to the ME Drive which needs an external terminal to access your items, but can store up to 8 storage cells. The ME Chest’s terminal can also only access items within itself even if it is connected to other ME Drives.

The energy acceptor can be placed anywhere in the network, as long as it is connected, meaning adjacent, to an ME Drive or a cable in the network. What the energy acceptor does is take energy from other mods/forms and convert it to a usable form for AE2. ME Drives which are placed next to each other will connect to each other as if they are wired together, so there is no need to lay cables connecting every ME drive. With that said, anything else that you want to be in the network will have to be connected with cables, including a terminal. In order to create storage space in the network for items, you have to craft some storage cells and place them into your ME Drives, or in your ME Chest. When you put storage cells into the ME Drives, you can see a visual update on the front of the ME Drive. When they are powered, ME Drives will show green lights in the slots that contain almost-empty storage cells, orange lights in the slots that contain semi-filled storage cells, and red lights in the slots that contain full storage cells. Additionally, most of the devices, including ME Drives, can have a priority set so that items will always try to go into devices with higher priorities first. The last thing to do is place a terminal onto some cable and right click the terminal to open up your AE2 network. You can see any items in the network using the terminal, as well as put items into and take items out of the system.

You will have to use the same type of cable for each network because different types of cable do not connect to each other. This is useful for creating different networks using different colored cables.

## **Optimizations**

Now that you know how to set up a working system, let's talk about how to make it better.

**System Loses Power When Moving Too Many Items?**

You might have noticed that if you put items into the system too quickly, the system shuts down. This is because putting items into the system draws power from the energy acceptor, which has an extremely limited power bank. The solution to this is to add an energy cell into the system. It can be added anywhere in the network because power distributes itself evenly across the entire network. You can even add multiple energy cells in different places. These energy cells will act as a buffer so that you can move an entire inventory into your network without shutting down the system from lack of power.

**Want Specific Storage Cells to Hold Specific Items?**

 What you are looking for is called a *cell workbench.* The cell workbench does not have to be connected to any networks and does not require power. Simply right click on the cell workbench and place your storage cell in the top right corner. On the left-hand-side of the GUI you will see 3 buttons. The top button, an X, will clear any configuration settings for your storage cell. The second button, the wrench, will automatically create a filter so that the storage cell can only store item types which it is already storing. The third button, a save icon, will toggle whether or not the table is cleared when you remove your storage cell from the top right. While your storage cell is in the table, place any blocks that you want the storage cell to store into the table. When you remove the storage cell from the cell workbench, the configuration will save and the storage cell will only be able to store the blocks which you put in the table.

There is also a card called an inverter card. This card reverses the filter so that instead of only storing the blocks which you put into the table, your storage cell will only store blocks that you did NOT put into the table. You can put this card in one of the two slots in the top right with your storage cell in the table.

**Automatically Putting Stuff Into Your Network**

 There are two main ways to put things into your storage network automatically. One is to use an import bus. Attach an ME import bus anywhere in your network and hook up some kind of input to it, a chest for example. By default, anything that is in your input will be put into the system through the ME import bus. You can filter items by right clicking on the import bus and putting an item into the single slot. Only items in the 3x3 table can enter through the import bus. If you want to add more items to the filter, you will need to add a capacity card to the import bus. One card unlocks 4 more filters and two cards unlocks 8 more filters.

The second method of moving items into your network is by connecting your input to an ME Interface. When you right click on the ME Interface you will see two sections; a config section and a pattern section. We will discuss the pattern section later. For now, we will focus on the config section. Any item, and its amount, that you place into one of the slots with arrows will be pulled from the network and placed into the slot below the arrow. For example, if you place 17 stone in a slot with an arrow, the slot below will always be populated with 17 stone from the network, as long as 17 stone exists in the network. These slots are used for items to move into and out of the ME interface, so you can fill these slots in order to filter what items move through the ME interface. You just need to understand that you cannot input items into the ME Interface if the 9 slots are filled with items.

**Automatically Taking Stuff Out Of Your Network**

Similar to how you would go about putting stuff into your network, there are two main ways to take stuff out of your network automatically. The first method is by using an export bus. Connect some kind of storage system, a chest for example, to the export bus. By default, nothing will be taken out of the system. The item that you want the export bus to draw from the system should be placed into the 3x3 grid inside the export bus. If you want to unlock more filters to take out more items, insert capacity cards into the export bus to unlock up to 9 filters.

The second method of pulling items from your network is by connecting some kind of item storage to an ME Interface. The only items which can be pulled out of the network are those which you have placed in the 9 config slots.

**The Universal Storage Bus**

The ME Storage bus is a generic bus which by default connects some kind of storage, a chest for example, to the network. This means that items that are put into the network can be stored in this chest by the system automatically. Items in the chest can also be seen in the network terminal and pulled out of the chest from the network terminal. The bus has a filter which you can use to decide which items can move through the bus. This filter can of course be reversed with the inverter card so that only items that are not in the filter can move through the bus.

On the left side of the GUI there are four buttons. The first will clear any filters that you have set, setting the storage bus back to its default settings. The second button will set the filter to any items which are already contained on the other side of the bus (in the chest connected to the network). The third button is a toggle which can be used to set the bus to extract only mode, insert only mode, or bi-directional, which is both. The final button allows you to set whether or not you want to display items in the terminal which cannot be extracted through the bus (items which are in the inventory on the other side of the bus, but are blocked by a filter).

The storage bus, like many other parts of the network, has a priority which can be set to determine what order items try to enter your buses. The number of filters you can set can be increased by capacity cards as well. It may be easy to confuse the usage of the ME Storage Bus with the export and import buses. It is important to understand that the export bus will export everything that it can export from the network, and the import bus will import everything that it can import into the network. Setting the ME Storage bus to export or import will *allow* the user to export or import from/to the connected storage using the terminal; the process is not automatic like the other buses.

**Filtering the Terminal**

 There is a search bar in the terminal so if you know what you are looking for, you can always find it relatively easily. But what if you have a specific set of items which you are looking for? What if you frequently need these items at the same time? There is an item called a View Cell which is perfect for this situation. To configure the View Cell, place it into the top right of the cell workbench. Any items placed into the table will be added to the View Cell’s filter. When you remove the View Cell from the table, you can place it into the top right of the terminal and the terminal will only show you items which are included in the filter of the View Cell.

There is a card called an Inverter Card which reverses the effects of the filter so that instead of only showing the items which you have placed in the table in the Cell Workbench, it shows only the items that you have NOT placed in the table. To make this modification to your View Cell, simply put an Inverter Card into one of the two slots in the top right of the Cell Workbench while your View Cell is inserted.

**Crafting in the Terminal**

 There is a faster method of crafting than pulling out a whole bunch of resources and heading to your nearest crafting table. There is a wonderful terminal called a crafting terminal which has a built in crafting table. It works exactly the same as an ordinary terminal, just connect it to the network. This crafting table works with the JEI.

**Wireless Terminals**

Believe it or not, there is a device with which you can access your network from a distance away. First of all you are going to need to make yourself a *wireless access point*. Connect this to your network by attaching it directly to a cable. Now make a *wireless terminal*. You have to connect the wireless terminal to your network using an ME Security Terminal. We will talk about the ME Security Terminal more later. For now, connect the Security Terminal to your network and put your wireless terminal into the box in the top right of the GUI - the one with the outline that looks like a wireless terminal. The wireless terminal is now connected to the network. The wireless access point has a default range of 16 blocks. If you want to increase the range from which you can access your network, there are two options. You can add more wireless terminals along the network. You can also use wireless boosters. The wireless booster is an item which can be placed into your wireless access point in order to extend its range by 1 block per booster. 64 boosters can be added to one wireless access point. You might notice that the wireless terminal requires power. You have to charge it. There are a few ways to do this, but my favorite way is with a wireless charger from the *Chargers* mod. Just power the wireless charger and when you are nearby, all of your devices, including your wireless terminal, will fill up with energy.

## **Auto-crafting**

One of the most exciting things about AE2 networks is the fact that you can autocraft items. There are a few things you are going to have to add to your network before you can auto-craft. First of all, you will need a pattern terminal. A pattern terminal functions similarly to the other types of terminals, and can be used to craft as well so you don’t need both a crafting terminal and a pattern terminal. When you open up the pattern terminal you can see a button under the scroll bar on the right side of the GUI which has a picture of a crafting table on it by default. This button switches the pattern mode from crafting pattern to processing pattern and vice versa. Crafting patterns are used for crafting recipes that would be made in a crafting table, and processing patterns are used for crafting items which are processed in various machines, such as turning cobblestone into stone using a furnace. Craft some blank patterns and place them in the slot above the arrow. Place the crafting recipe that you want to make a pattern for in the crafting table, or place a block in the crafting grid and its processed product in the 3x1 grid on the right, and push the downward-facing arrow to create the pattern. A blank pattern will be encoded with your pattern. If you want to turn a pattern into a blank pattern again, simply shift right click with the pattern in your hand.

For any auto-crafting process you are going to need to build a Crafting CPU and connect it to your network. When you start a “crafting job”, the network sends the job to a Crafting CPU that is in your network and has enough storage to handle the job. Larger jobs, crafting more items at a time, requires more storage. Crafting CPUs are multiblock structures. They must be comprised entirely of Crafting Units, Crafting Co-processing Units, and Crafting Monitors. They also must be a cuboid, meaning the entire structure must have exactly six surfaces. Examples of cuboids include 1x1x3, 4x3x3, 2x2x2, etc. Crafting CPUs must contain at least one crafting storage block (smallest size 1K). When your Crafting CPU is valid, the sides of the blocks will change from solid squares to crosses. The total amount of crafting storage you have is the sum of the crafting storage blocks contained in the Crafting CPU. Crafting co-processing units do not add additional crafting storage but they allow you to use more assemblers (we will talk about assemblers in a bit) at a time. Crafting monitors are purely visual blocks which display what is currently being crafted by the Crafting CPU and how many are left.

Once you have a Crafting CPU connected to your network you are going to need to craft an ME Interface and connect it to your network. A single ME Interface can store up to 9 patterns which it can craft using adjacent Molecular Assemblers. Craft and place at least one Molecular Assembler touching one of the six faces of the ME Interface. Now place a crafting pattern into one of the 9 pattern slots in the ME Interface. If you open your network’s terminal you can toggle your view settings (click on the hammer icon) to the *craftable* tab. Here you should see all of the things that you can craft in your network, including the crafting pattern you just put into your ME Interface. When you click on an item you will be prompted for how many you would like to craft. After entering a number you will be shown a summary of your crafting job, and will be asked to select a Crafting CPU to carry it out. By default, it will be set to automatic, meaning it will choose the smallest Crafting CPU that you have available which can handle the crafting job. If the crafting job is too big for any of your CPUs the bar will read *No Crafting CPUs are Available*. Once you have selected what Crafting CPU you want to use, hit start.

Your system will automatically handle the rest. If you want to see your active crafting jobs, click the hammer in the top right of your terminal. From this window you can see all of the crafting and processing that is taking place, and cancel any jobs that you want to cancel. If you watch the Molecular Assemblers during a crafting job, you can see items being crafted inside them.

The only difference between processing patterns and crafting patterns is that you replace the Molecular Assemblers with a machine. For example, if you want to turn cobblestone into stone automatically, you need to place an ME Interface above a furnace (because the furnace’s input is in the top), and you have to run an import bus out the bottom of the furnace (because the furnace’s output is out the bottom). Optionally, you can run an export bus into the furnace’s side which fills it with fuel as well. Then place any processing patterns you wish to use with the furnace into the ME Interface which is connected to the furnace, and you will be able to automatically process items through your terminal. Remember that processing jobs still require a Crafting CPU.

A useful tool to be aware of is the ME Interface Terminal. This terminal shows a list of all ME Interfaces that are connected to the network, and what crafting or process patterns are inside of them. You can also move patterns around from the terminal, though ME Interfaces which are paired to the same type of machine just become stacked without identification so it might be hard to tell which interface is which.

There is a card called a crafting card which can be added to a few devices including the export bus. This card allows these buses to craft items. For example, by giving an export bus a crafting card and setting the filter to stone, your export bus will pull all of the stone out of your network. Once there is no more stone in the network, the export bus will process any cobblestone in the network into stone, and pull that stone out of the network as well.

## **Fluids**

AE2 has a lot of support for fluid storage and transport as well. Most of the items that work with fluids are very similar or identical to its counterpart which works with items. Here is a list of everything fluid related from AE2:

* ME Fluid Interface
* 1k ME Fluid Storage Cell
* 4k ME Fluid Storage Cell
* 16k ME Fluid Storage Cell
* 64k ME Fluid Storage Cell
* ME Fluid Annihilation Plane
* ME Fluid Export Bus
* ME Fluid Formation Plane
* ME Fluid Import Bus
* ME Fluid Interface (Panel)
* ME Fluid Level Emitter
* ME Fluid Storage Bus
* ME Fluid Terminal

## **Misc**

**Recycling Storage Cells:** when you want to upgrade your system with larger storage cells you do not have to craft them from scratch. Shift right click with any ME Storage Cell to split it into the Storage Component and the Storage Housing which were originally used to craft it.

**Quartz Glass**: a beautiful variant of glass which is also a crafting ingredient in some recipes

**Charged Quartz Fixture**: a decorative light source

**Fluix Block**: a decorative purple block which is also a crafting ingredient in some recipes

**Tiny TNT**: a smaller version of tnt. Despite my best efforts I have not been able to ignite the tiny tnt with a flint and steel. The tiny tnt does ignite when it receives a redstone pulse or when it is dispensed however.

**Spatial Pylons and the Spatial IO Port**: The reason I didn’t go too in depth into this is because I have yet to find a real use for these blocks. You set up a tower of Spatial Pylons at the four corners of an area. The area inside of the Spatial Pylons is your *capture* *area*. All four pylons have to be connected to the network separately. When done, they will light up purple. Connect the Spatial IO Port to the network and insert a Spatial Storage Cell. When you give the Spatial IO Port a redstone pulse, any blocks in the *capture area* will be stored in the Spatial Storage Cell, and will be removed from the world, as long as the Spatial Storage Cell has enough storage. Putting that same Spatial Storage Cell as the input of the Spatial IO Port once again and giving it a redstone pulse will empty the Spatial Storage Cell and put any blocks stored inside into the *capture area* (back where they started).

**Vibration Chamber**: a block which burns fuel to generate power which it distributes from all six of its sides.

**Light Detecting Fixture**: a decorative block which outputs a redstone signal strength of 1 at light level 7 and a signal strength of 9 at light level 15. This block does not update itself however; the redstone signal it is outputting will only be updated when the Light Detecting Fixture is affected by a block update.

**Nether Quartz Wrench**: a tool which can rotate blocks with right click, and can break blocks that are a part of your network with shift right click.

**Entropy Manipulator**: a tool which turns blocks into their smelted form with a right click. Clicking on sand will turn the sand into glass for example. If the block that is clicked cannot be altered, it will set a fire instead. Requires energy to run, and can be charged with a charger as usual.

**Nether Quartz Cutting Knife**: if you right click in the air with this knife, a text bar and a single slot will pop up. If you put a piece of iron into the slot and type any text into the text bar you will create an Inscriber Name Press which contains the text you typed. You can now combine one or two Inscriber Name Presses with a tool or block to rename it whatever the text contained within the name press. If you combine two name presses at once, the name of the item will be the text of the first name press and the text of the second name press separated by a space. This process is similar to naming in an anvil, but without the xp cost. The cutting knife is also used in some crafting recipes.

**Portable Cell:** an on-the-go mini storage system. The Portable Cell has a total of 512 Bytes of storage and can store 27 different types of item. Right click with the Portable Cell in hand to see what is inside. It has a search bar and some sorting options. The Portable Cell needs to be charged in order to access its inventory. The Portable Cell only uses energy while its inventory is open.

**Color Applicator**: a tool which can be filled with paint balls and used to change the color of certain blocks by right clicking on them. The Color Applicator can be loaded by placing it into the storage slot of an ME Chest and putting paint balls into that chest. Paint balls can be crafted using a dye and matter balls. Matter balls require a matter condenser. Matter condensers are standalone machines which take in items and turn them into energy. They have three modes which they can be set to: trash mode, matter ball mode, and singularity mode. The energy that is created by inputting items into the matter condenser needs somewhere to be stored, so put an ME Storage Component of any size into the top-most slot in the matter condenser, with the bar next to it. After setting the mode to matter ball mode, any items that are put into the matter condenser will be turned into energy and stored in the ME Storage Component. Every 256 items, a matter ball will be created.

**Biometric Card**: right click on another player to encode their identity, or shift right click to encode your own identity. Then place the Biometric card into an ME Security Terminal that is connected to a network. With the biometric card in place, you can set the permissions of the player whose identity is encoded in the biometric card with regard to the network.

**Memory Card**: shift right click on any configurable object to save its settings in the memory card, and then right click on any other object of the same type to transfer over the settings

**Network Tool**: right clicking on any part of your network with the network tool will bring up a window which gives you a lot of useful information about your network, including how much power your network can store, how much power your network is storing, how much energy is being used, how much energy is being generated, and what devices are in your network.

**Capacity Card:** increases the number of filters that you can configure in a few different device types

**Crafting Card:** allows ME Interfaces or ME export bus to request auto-crafting from the system

**Fuzzy Card:** enables certain configurable items to filter items based on their durability

**Inverter Card:** reverses the filter in configurable items from a white list to a black list. In other words, instead of only specified items being let through, only non specified items are let through.

**Redstone Card:** allows a device to be turned on and off using redstone

**Acceleration Card:** can be used to increase the working speed of many different devices, including Molecular Assemblers and Inscribers.

**ME Annihilation Plane:** breaks any block that is placed or moved in front of it and stores it in a connected network as if it were broken without silk touch. Glass is destroyed and grass is turned into dirt.

**ME Identity Annihilation Plane:** breaks any block that is placed or moved in front of it and stores it in a connected network as if it were broken with silk touch.

**Cable Anchor**: This block is mostly decorative. You connect it to the sides of cables to make them look like they are mounted onto surfaces. They also prevent cables from connecting to anything that is on the side the cable anchor is placed on. They are also a crafting ingredient for some recipes.

**ME Conversion Monitor:** place this monitor anywhere in your network. Right click on the monitor with an item to set the monitor to display the number of that type of item which is stored in your network. Right click on the monitor with an empty hand to clear it. Shift right click on the monitor to lock it. While locked, left click on the monitor to take one stack of the shown item out of the network. Shift left click to take out exactly one of the shown item. Right click with any item in hand to place that item into the network. Right click on the monitor with an empty hand to move all of the items in your inventory of the shown type into the network.

**Illuminated, Dark Illuminated, and Bright Illuminated Panels:** a series of decorative glowing panels

**ME Formation Plane:** the formation plane has two modes; block mode and item mode. Depending on its priority and its filter, the formation plane places any incoming blocks in front of itself in block mode, or drops any incoming items in front of itself in item mode.

**ME Toggle Bus and Inverted Toggle Bus:** the toggle bus is like a bridge from one part of the network to another. When the toggle bus is powered, the bridge is lowered, connecting both networks together. When the toggle bus is unpowered, the bridge is raised, and the terminal cannot access any items stored on the other side of the toggle bus. The inverted toggle bus is the opposite; the bridge is down when there is no redstone signal powering it.

**ME Level Emitter:** attach this anywhere to your network. Right click on it to open its GUI. There are two modes which can be toggled using the button in the top left of the GUI. In Item Mode, place any item in the slot to the right of the text box. The ME Level Emitter will then emit a redstone signal if the number of that item in the network is greater than or equal to the number in the textbox. In Energy Mode, the ME Level Emitter will emit a redstone signal if the amount of power in the network is greater than or equal to the number in the textbox. There is a button under the mode toggle button which inverts the redstone signal. You can add a Fuzzy Card in order to use the Level Emitter with items within a certain durability range. You can also add a Crafting Card to completely ignore everything above and just have the ME Level Emitter emit a redstone signal while the item in the slot is being autocrafted by the network.

**Cable Facades:** almost any block in the game can be surrounded on four sides with anchor cables to form a cable façade with that block’s texture. Very useful for hiding cables and parts of your network in a discrete fashion.

## **AE2 Add-Ons**

Below is a list of links to mods which add more to AE2:

* AE2 Stuff
* Extra Cells 2