applied energistics Applied Energistics: Getting Started with ME Systems

[donoskaro]

 

 

Applied Energistics: Getting started with ME Systems

 

About This Guide

This guide is the first part of a series of guides on the ME System from the Applied Energistics mod. Below is a full list of all of the guides:

Applied Energistics: Getting Started with ME Systems
Applied Energistics: Auto-crafting & More (coming soon)
Applied Energistics: ME Systems and Fluid Storage (coming soon)
Applied Energistics: Advanced Concepts (coming soon)
 

What is an ME system?

I see many people asking, what exactly is an ME system? The most simple answer to that would be: a really cool chest. But an ME system is far more than that. As you will see in this guide, it allows you to do many fantastic things such as, accessing your items from different locations, auto-crafting items when you need them, as well as storing a huge amount of items (we’re talking millions here) in just a few blocks worth of space.

If you are just getting started, the guide is structured in such a way that will build up slowly as you go along. If you already know what an ME system is and how to use it, feel free to skip around and look at only the bits you’re interested in.
 

Table of Contents:

1. Prerequisites - Materials Required
2. A Basic ME System
3. Monitoring Resources
4. Importing & Exporting Items
5. A Wireless Solution
6. Making it Colourful

 

Note

The official information website for the Applied Energistics 1 mod can be found here.

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1. Prerequisites - Materials Required

To get started with building an ME system, you will need a few key materials. Each example will include the amount of items required, therefore we will only cover the types of items required, and how to make them.
 

1.1 Core Materials & Machines

The core materials that you will require are:
 Iron
 Redstone
Certus Quartz
Nether Quartz
 Certus Quartz Dust (can be made by pulverizing Certus Quartz)
 Nether Quartz Dust (can be made by pulverizing Nether Quartz)
Diamond
 Gold
Planks (To make Sticks & Chests)
 Glass

The core machines that you will require are:
 Redstone Furnace (normal furnace will also work)
 Pulverizer (grindstone may also work)
 Assembly Table (optional, but highly recommended)

(Note: For information on how to setup an assembly table see: https://ftbwiki.org/Assembly_Table)
 

1.2 Crafting Recipes

Here are the crafting recipes for the most common modded items used in this tutorial:

Fluix Crystal

 

Fluix Dust

 

Silicon

 

Quartz Cutting Knife

 

Conversion Matrix

 

Basic Processor
The cheapest way to craft a basic processor is to use an assembly table, for which only: 1x Gold Ingot, 1x Redstone, and 1x Silicon are needed.

 

For creating a basic processor without the use of an assembly table, see the instructions inside the spoiler below.
 

Spoiler

To create a basic process without the use of an assembly table we first have to create a basic process assembly. To do so, we will require: 2x Redstone, 1x Gold Ingot, 1x Silicon, and 1x Quartz Cutting Knife, arranged in the following pattern:



Then, smelt the basic processor assembly in a furnace to get a basic processor.

Advanced Processor
The cheapest way to craft an advanced processor is to use an assembly table, for which only: 1x Diamond, 1x Redstone, and 1x Silicon are needed.



For creating an advanced processor without the use of an assembly table, see the instructions inside the spoiler below.
 

Spoiler

To create an advanced process without the use of an assembly table we first have to create an advanced process assembly. To do so, we will require: 2x Redstone, 1x Diamond, 1x Silicon, and 1x Quartz Cutting Knife, arranged in the following pattern:



Then, smelt the advanced processor assembly in a furnace to get an advanced processor.

 

Protip

All of these recipes can be obtained in-game through the use of NEI. To do this, type in the item name in the bottom search bar, then hover your mouse cursor over the item and press "R", or if you have NEI set to recipe mode, simply click on the item to view the recipe.

[donoskaro]

2. A Basic ME System

In this section, we will cover the basic components of a ME system, ME storages and show you a couple of examples of simple ME systems you can use to get started.
 

2.1 Basic Blocks

 ME Controller
This is the "brains" of your ME system. Each system must have one, and only one, ME Controller block. Other blocks connect to it, either directly or via the use of an ME Cable. This is also where you connect your power to. Below is the crafting recipe for the ME Controller, in order to craft it you will need: 4x Iron Ingot, 4x Fluix Crystal, and 1x Advanced Processor.


 

 ME Drive
This is the storage part of the ME system. Each ME Drive has 10 slots for ME Storages (3 slots if using the blast-resistant version of the ME Drive).
ME Storages come in a number of different flavours, for the purposes of this guide, we are going to stick with: 1k, 4k, 16k, 64k. You can use as many Drives as you would like in your system. Below is the crafting recipe for the ME Drive, in order to craft it you will need: 4x Iron Ingot, 2x Basic Processor, 2x Glass, and 1x Chest.


 

 ME Access Terminal
The Access Terminal is what you use to access the content of your ME system, you can use it to put items in, and take items out of the system. You can use as many Access Terminals as you would like in your system. Below is the crafting recipe for the ME Access Terminal, in order to craft it you will need: 4x Iron Ingot, 3x Glass, 1x ME Cable, and 1x Conversion Matrix.


 

 ME Cable
The ME Cable is the most useful non-essential part of an ME system. A basic system can be created by just placing blocks next to each other without the need for any cables, however, in most cases, you will want to put the Access Terminal in a different place, or even have many in different parts of your base. This is where the ME Cable comes into play, it allows you to connect the ME blocks to each other. Below is the crafting recipe for the ME Cable, in order to craft it you will need: 6x Glass, and 3x Fluix Dust.


 

2.2 ME Storages

The ME Storages are where your items are actually stored. They go in to the ME Drive. They can be moved between different ME systems in order to move the items. In this section we will only cover the crafting of 1k storages but other storages such as the 64k storage, are recommended instead. All ME storages can only store 63 different item types, therefore it is highly recommended to not put in things such as worn tools, or, armour in to the system as that can quickly fill up the storages.

To craft a 1k storage, we will first need a Storage Cell. To craft a storage cell you will need: 4x Certus Quartz, 4x Redstone, and 1x Basic Processor, arranged in the following way:

We can then craft the 1k storage using 3x Iron Ingot, 3x Redstone, 2x Glass, and 1x Storage Cell, arranged in the following way:

 

Below is a list of links to the different, previously mentioned, storages which also contain crafting instructions.

• 1k Storage
• 4k Storage
• 16k Storage
• 64k Storage

2.3 Simple Example

Here is a simple example of a ME system. It uses: 1x ME Controller, 1x ME Drive, and 1x ME Access Terminal. For this you will need the following resources:

• 16x Iron
• 11x Glass
• 4x Fluix crystal
• 3x Basic processor
• 5x Fluix dust
• 1x Advanced processor
• 1x Nether quartz
• 1x Certus quartz
• 1x Chest

You will also need 1 or more ME Storages to store the items in, as well as a power source connected to the ME Controller.

Spoiler

2.4 Advanced Example

Here is a more advanced example of a ME System showing off how ME Cables can be utilised to connect multiple blocks together (in a normal scenario the cables would of course be longer). Please note, that for this to work, the entire cable connecting 2 blocks must be chunkloaded. The setup uses: 1x ME Controller, 2x ME Drive, and 2x ME Access Terminal. For this setup, you will need the following extra resources in addition to the ones specified in the previous example:

• 12x Iron Ingot
• 5x Fluix Dust
• 5x Glass
• 3x Basic Processor
• 1x Chest
• 1x Nether Quartz
• 1x Certus Quartz

Plus, for every 3x ME Cable:

• 6x Glass
• 3x Fluix Dust

You will also need 1 or more ME Storages to store the items in, as well as a power source connected to the ME Controller.

Spoiler

 

Bonus

Check out this page for information about the ME Crafting Terminal, it is similiar to the Access Terminal, however it includes a crafting area to allow you to craft straight from the ME system. It requires a bit more resources but is usually favoured over the standard Access Terminal.

 

Protip

You can upgrade existing, smaller, storages by separating the storage element from the housing. Please note that this will remove all items stored in that cell, so export them using an IO Port first (see Applied Energistics: Advanced Concepts). For more information see this FTBWiki page.

[donoskaro]

3. Monitoring Resources

In this section, we will cover the ME Storage Monitor block and how it can be used to monitor the amount of items inside of your ME system. Included as well, is an example, building on from the previous ME systems to help you get started.
 

 ME Storage Monitor

The storage monitor, when configured, displays the amount of a given item in the ME System, for example, it can display how much Emeralds, or Copper you have. This is useful as you do not have to open up the Access or Crafting Terminal in order to see how much of a given resource you have. To configure a storage monitor, right click the monitor with the item in your hand. To clear the monitor, right click it with nothing in your hand. In order to craft an ME storage monitor, you will need: 6x Iron Ingot, 9x Glass, 3x Fluix Dust, 1x Basic Processor, and 1x Redstone Torch.

Crafting a Storage Monitor involves crafting a Level Emitter first (we will cover this later on in the guides). The crafting recipe for a level emitter is as below, it requires: 2x Iron Ingot, 1x ME Cable, 1x Basic Processor, and 1x Redstone Torch.

After creating a level emitter, we can now craft the Storage Monitor by arranging: 3x Glass, 4x Iron Ingot, 1x ME Cable, and 1x ME Level Emitter in the following way:


 

3.1 Simple Example

Building up from the previous simple example (2.3), this example has 3x ME Storage Monitors added on top which are configured to show the number of Emeralds, Diamonds, and Cobblestone in the system.
 

Spoiler

 

Protip

To avoid accidentally resetting your storage monitor, shift right-click on it using a wrench (or crescent hammer?), this will lock the monitor and prevent accidental changes from being made. To unlock it, repeat the steps.

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4. Importing & Exporting Items

Putting items in and taking items out of the ME System via the Access Terminal may seem like a lot effort, especially when with chests you can use itemducts, buildcraft pipes, and transfer nodes amongst other things to easily transport items to and form chests. The equivalent of this in the ME System is a set of buses: the import bus, and the output bus. Both come in 3 variations: basic, precision and fuzzy. These buses can connect to chests and machines to automatically put items in, and take items out.

The import bus is responsible for importing items to the ME System from a container such as a chest, whereas the export bus is responsible for exporting items from the ME System to a container such as a chest. In order for an export bus to export an item, the item needs to be placed in the export bus' menu (right-click). For import buses, the menu can be used as a white-list for items that need to be imported into the system (basic import bus does not allow for white-listing of items).

Note

Import and export buses do not work directly with tesseracts. They require a chest in between. An example setup might be: Tesseract --> Chest --Import Bus-->ME System.

 

4.1 Bus Variations

There are three bus variations: the basic bus, the precision bus, and the fuzzy bus. The basic bus is the most simplest one of them all. It imports/exports one item at a time and only allows exporting of one item and does not allow white-listing items to import. The precision bus is more advanced than the basic bus, it allows you to choose either single item mode, or stack mode for moving items, as well as it allows for control via redstone. With a precision export bus, you can also choose to white-list the items to import as well as export more than one item type at a time. The fuzzy bus is the most advanced type of bus, instead of treating items with different amount of damages as the same, it allows you to configure the damage threshold, in order to treat damage values below a certain value as the same, or even ignore them.

4.2 Crafting Recipes

All ME buses require an ME Interface block in order to be crafted. We will cover this block in a later guide, for now, we have attached the crafting recipe below. It requires: 4x Iron Ingot, 3x Glass, 1x ME Cable, and 1x Conversion Matrix.

Crafting recipes for the buses are attached in the spoiler below.

Spoiler

Basic Import Bus

The basic import bus requires the following items arranged in a pattern as shown in the graphic below: 2x Iron Ingot, 1x ME Cable, 1x ME Interface, and 1x Sticky Piston.

Basic Export Bus

The basic export bus requires the following items arranged in a pattern as shown in the graphic below: 2x Iron Ingot, 1x ME Cable, 1x ME Interface, and 1x Piston.

Precision Import Bus

The precision import bus requires the following items arranged in a pattern as shown in the graphic below: 1x Basic Import Bus, 1x Basic Processor.

Precision Export Bus

The precision import bus requires the following items arranged in a pattern as shown in the graphic below: 1x Basic Export Bus, 1x Basic Processor.

Fuzzy Import Bus

The precision import bus requires the following items arranged in a pattern as shown in the graphic below: 1x Basic Import Bus, 1x Advanced Processor.

Fuzzy Export Bus

The precision import bus requires the following items arranged in a pattern as shown in the graphic below: 1x Basic Export Bus, 1x Advanced Processor.

4.3 Simple Example 1

In this example, we are using a Basic Import Bus, in order to take items out of a chest and into our ME System. The chest could be replaced with many different things such as a Thermal Expansion machine. 

Spoiler

 

4.4 Simple Example 2 (Tesseracts)

Tesseracts are commonly used in Tekkit, therefore, we have decided to demonstrate how to use them with the ME buses. In this example, we have a tesseract which outputs items directly to the neighbouring chest from which items are then taken out and imported into the ME System using the Precision Import Bus.

Spoiler

 

4.5 Advanced Example

In this more advanced example we show how import and export buses can be used to automatically convert ores into their pulverised form. We have attached precision export buses at the top which take the specified ores out of the system and into the pulverisers, and precision import buses to take the pulverised ores out of the pulveriser and back into the ME System.

Spoiler

 

Bonus

Check out the more in-depth information pages for the Fuzzy Import Bus and the Fuzzy Export Bus which allow you to import and export items not only based on the item type, but also based on the item's damage value.

[donoskaro]

6. Making it Colourful

You might not like the purple colour of the Access Terminal, fear not, you can change this color to any of the other 7 available, including but not limited to: blue, green, red, white, and many more. All you need are 8 ME Cables and some dye. Below is a list of colours available and the corresponding that is required:

• Blue: Lapis
• Yellow: Yellow Dye
• Black: Ink Sac
• White: Bonemeal
• Brown: Cocoa Beans
• Green: Green Dye
• Red: Red Dye

To craft a colored ME Cable, inside of a crafting table, place the dye in the center and fill the rest of the spots with ME Cables like so:

To change the colour of the Access Terminal, Crafting Terminal, or Storage Monitor, place down a coloured ME Cable and after that, place the block by right clicking on the coloured ME Cable. Alternatively, if your system is already set-up, take a single ME Cable and shift right-click on the side of the block while holding the cable to change the colour, then remove the cable. Below is a short video showing the 2 different methods.

Spoiler

 

 

Protip

To convert coloured ME cables back to the standard, purple, variety, just place them inside of a crafting grid.

[donoskaro]

Footnote

Thank you for taking the time to read through this guide. I hope that you have found it useful.

If you have spotted a mistake, feel like something is not explained properly, or have a suggestion, please send me a message on the forums or via Discord (donoskaro#9980).

Credits

Crafting recipe images have been taken from https://ftbwiki.org/.

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