Almost every device in AE2 consumes a channel. The channels are provided by either an ME controller or Energy acceptor and are distributed along with the cables.

1. Quartz fiber – A cable that can be used only to transfer energy. Does not allow any channels. Its main use is for making sub-networks.
2. ME Glass Cable – The most used cable in basic networks. While still being cheap, this cable offers passage for 8 channels. These cables can also be colored, causing different colors not to connect. This cable offers the covered (cable now allows the transfer of liquids) and smart (you can see the number of channels on the cable and you are able to transfer liquids through it) version.
3. ME Dense Cable – The heavy-duty of cables. Offers only covered and smart versions, but the main advantage is the 32 channel passage. These cables are usually used to distribute large quantities of channels farther away from the controller.

ME Smart Cable with 6 channels allocated

Priority

1. Whitelisted items or items already present in the storage unit – If an item is whitelisted in a storage bus, partitioned on a cell, or simply present in a cell, the network will attempt to store it there to save space.
2. Storage connections or drives set to high priority – If the item is not whitelisted anywhere, nor present in the storage, the highest priority wins.
3. Storage connections or drives set to low priority – After all attempts fail, the lowest priority is selected. If even this option fails, the item is rejected and you can not put it inside the network. This can happen most often when the network is full.

The Applied Energistics 2 Priority GUI

Usually, people put a high priority on external bulk storages, such as drawers or barrels, and a lower priority on drives. In case that two priorities are the same, the first found connection is used.

What does ME network consist of?

Channel provider

1. Energy Acceptor – Energy acceptor is the “basic” version of the channel providers. It offers 8 channels (for the whole block) and has no internal buffer. This means that connecting 9 AE2 devices (that consume channels) to the network will render the farthest one offline. Also, lack of the internal buffer will “crash” the network whenever you pull out more than 40 items and you will have to wait for it to restart. This crashing can be avoided by using Energy Storage Cells.
2. ME Controller – Unlike the Energy Acceptor, you can technically have multiple controllers in the same network. There is a catch, however. They all have to be touching and have to be within the 7*7*7 area. On top of that, certain shapes are considered “invalid” and will prevent your controller from working. The controller offers 32 channels per side, meaning 192 channels for the whole block and has an internal storage of 8 000 AE (16 000 RF). You can see if the controller is correctly built by plugging it into a power source. If everything is fine, the controller will start flashing in rainbow colors.

Applied Energistics 2 Channel providers – From the left: Energy Acceptor, Unpowered ME Controller and Powered ME Controller

Storage

1. External storage – Storage type used mainly for large quantities of items, utilizing drawers, barrels, chests, or crates. By using a storage bus, you can connect almost every item container in the game.
2. Internal storage – By utilizing ME drives, you can add Storage Cells directly to your network. Each drive offers 10 slots for cells, each cell offers 63 item types and some amount of bytes. Here are tables that tell you how many items can be stored in each cell. The status of the cell is written in its tooltip, but it can also be seen on the drive, even though simplified.
   Green – The cell has empty space. Both item types and item stacks.
   Orange – The cell has run out of item type space, but more items of the already stored type can be added.
   Red – The bytes of the cell are out. No free space on this cell. This does not necessarily mean that the amount of types is at the maximum, however, even then you can not store any more items in a particular cell.

Applied Energistics 2 Storage Types

You have a network that is powered. You have storage connected to your network. But there is a catch. How to get the items in? Or out? You need an access point. An access point is a terminal. Either ME Terminal or a better version, ME Crafting Terminal. Using these, a GUI with your items will show up and you can interact with them freely.

Applied Energistics 2 access terminals – from the left: ME Terminal and ME Crafting Terminal

If you liked this wiki article, check out the following articles as well:

• Getting started with the Tinkers’ Construct Mod
• Using Lag Goggles to hunt down laggy parts of your base.
• Getting Started with the Flux Networks Mod