Set up your Applied Energistics 2 (AE2) peripherals with ease by following this mod guide.

Busses and Emitters

So far we stayed inside the AE2 network. In this guide, we will venture to the “peripherals” of the network; their connection to the outside world.

Just a note before we begin. All of the described busses and emitters are for the items, but work more or less the same for the fluids.

Import Bus

Taking items from a chest and putting them in the network can get tedious really quickly. Luckily, you can make the import bus. On its own, it is pretty slow, but putting in four of the speed cards can make a difference. (Each card increases the speed 4x, going 1, 4, 16, 64, and 256 items per cycle with 0 – 4 acceleration cards.) You can also set up a filter inside the import bus (1 – 9 filter slots) that will (by default) whitelist the inputted items. For example, if you put a cobblestone in the filter, nothing but cobblestone can be imported using this bus.

Export Bus

We handled the “items in”… but what about the “items out”? The export bus helps you get items out of your network. Just as at the import bus, the nine slots in the GUI are whitelisted, meaning, only the items inside the filter will be outputted. On the left side of the GUI, there is also a button to change the output mode. The default mode exports all occurrences of the first item type and moves to the next, effectively emptying the whole network one item type after another. The second mode is round-robin. This mode exports a batch (one cycle of export or 1 item when at 0 acceleration cards) from an item type and moves to the next item type in the filter. The last option of export is random, switching between item types after each batch.

Storage Bus

This bus works as both and as neither of the previous busses at the same time. I can export and import, yet it was not designed to function as a way of adding or removing items to or from the network. This bus is designed to add non-AE2 storage. For example, you have a filing cabinet (A storage block that can store thousands of non-stackable items that have durability) full of bows (skeleton farm maybe?). However, each bow has different durability, so these bows would take up a ton of space on your disks. For this reason, we use the filing cabinet that can handle these easily and connect it to the network using the storage bus. The bows now display in your network without taking up most of your precious disks. There are three storage modes in the GUI.

1. Bi-directional – The connection works just like opening a chest. You can put items in, or you can take items out. Standard rules apply though. If there is no space, you can’t put items in and if there are no items, you can not take any out.
2. Deposit Only – You can imagine this mode just like a hopper above a chest. By accessing the hopper, you can put items in the chest, but you can not take them out. The items from this storage will not be displayed in your terminal, as you can not take them out.
3. Withdraw only – This mode works like a hopper below the chest. You can take items out, but you can not put them back in. These items are again visible from your terminal, but if you take them out and put them back in using the terminal, they will get stored on your disks instead of the remote storage.

By placing items inside the Storage bus, you determine the items that can be stored in the remote storage. If you leave it blank, all items are allowed. The priority setting of this bus determines if it is selected before the internal storage, or after it.
My tip would be to set the priority high, so the items first go to the remote storages (Barrels, drawers, etc.) and then into the network.

There is also a “Report inaccessible items” option. This option comes into play when you either use locked drawers or a partitioned storage bus. Even the items that are not available (yet have the spot in the storage bus) will show in the network if this option is enabled.

Level emitter

Emitters work fairly differently than the busses do. The level emitter is used to detect the amount of an item. Based on the item count and the condition, the emitter emits a Redstone signal. In the GUI you can set the item count, the item itself, and the behavior. You can switch between “emit when lower” which will emit a signal whenever the item count is under the mark you have set, or “emit when higher”, which works the opposite way. The level emitter is one of the key components of the so-called “Stock keeper”. There is also an option, where you can switch between item level (described above) or energy level. If energy goes above (or drops below, depending on the redstone setting) redstone signal is emitted, so you can use this little thing to even toggle your power generation. Just remember, that if the network has no power whatsoever, the emitter will not emit any signal under any circumstances.

Interfaces

At first glance, interfaces are complicated. At second glance, they are simple. What is the truth? They are one of the, if not the, most powerful blocks in Applied Energistics 2.
Let’s divide the GUI into three parts. Top 9 slots, middle 9 slots under them, and at the bottom, pattern slots.

The top nine slots are export slots. Whenever you put any items in the slot, the slot right below it will try to keep that amount of the specified item in it. If there is more, they will get pulled back into the network.

As I already suggested, the nine slots in the middle are where the exported items go. However, if you do not specify an item for a particular slot, that slot behaves as an import window. Thanks to this behavior, you can use regular pipes pointing into an interface instead of using import busses, so you can save up on some channels. They are also much faster in comparison to import busses.

The last part is the pattern slots at the bottom. You can put your auto crafting patterns in these slots. If the interface is set to the default direction (all sides have squares on it), it attempts to use the first machine next to it. Else it uses the machine which it points at. All the items resulting from the auto crafting using molecular assemblers will be spit back into the interface, so keep the export slots open on these.

The interface offers a blocking mode setting. The first option attempts to put all of the materials available to it into the crafting inventory. This mode is useful for basic crafting. The second option sends the items only if there are no items in the inventory it is pushing into. This option should be considered for some more-item-dependent recipes in machines.

The second option in the GUI is a toggle for displaying the interface in an interface terminal, enabled by default.

You can also rename your interface. Sometimes you have, let’s say, seven interfaces all pointing into different chests, for the sake of automation. However, seeing all the interfaces as “Chest” is not very useful. How can one remember which one is which? To rename an interface, you will need a quartz cutting knife, iron ingot, inscribed, and the interface itself. First, right-click with the quartz cutting knife. When you do this, GUI appears. You put your iron ingot in the slot on the left, then type the name in the field in the middle. On the right is the output field, when you can get your name press. You use the name press on the interface in an inscriber and you are done. When you place it, its name is changed and the interface shows up under this name. You can also rename a crafting monitor to rename the CPU tower.

Another feature of interfaces is the power of creating sub-networks, but more on that in a future guide.

Before we end, there is one more important thing to cover.

Upgrade Cards

All busses, emitters, interfaces, and even machines from Applied Energistics can be upgraded with the use of cards. What devices a card can go into can be checked by hovering over the card in your inventory.

Basic Cards

1. Crafting Card – By adding this card into a device, the crafting option appears. Here you can select, if the items should be taken from the network and then crafted, or straight up crafted, ignoring the amount in the network.
2. Redstone Card – This card allows a basic redstone control of the device.
3. Capacity Card – By using this card, the amount of available slots in a device is increased. (Unlocks the grayed out slots).

Advanced Cards

1. Acceleration Card – This card improves the speed at which the device operates. You will need a lot of these.
2. Fuzzy Card – With this card, you get the option to ignore item data such as durability, name, and other. For example bows from a skeleton farm. By using a fuzzy card with a bow in the filter in the export bus, all the bows will be emptied from the network. Useful for automated trash cans.
3. Inverter Card – By default, the slots in busses are whitelisted. (What is on the filter will pass). With this card, you can invert this setting to make it a blacklist. (What is on the filter gets rejected).

And that is it for this one. I hope you learned something new again. See you at the next one! Stay safe.

 

---

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

• Learn more about early automatic ore generation.
• Powering your base with Flux Networks.
• Get started with the Embers Rekindled mod and set up Embers Mechanic and the Embers Bore structures together to produce energy to power the Ember Bore.

---

Mystical Machines is a small modded Minecraft network. Feel free to reach out to us if you want to learn more or if you want to join!

If you are looking for a multiplayer modded Minecraft server to play on, visit https://moddedminecraft.com to find one. 

Related Entries

• Applied Energistics 2 – Basics
• Applied Energistics 2 – Security and wireless
• Applied Energistics 2 – Monitors
• Applied Energistics 2 – Terminals
• Applied Energistics 2 – Automatic crafting