Your First ME Network – Applied Energistics 2 Wiki (1.21.1)

An ME network stores items as data on storage cells. You put items into a terminal, they disappear into the cells, and the terminal shows everything in one sorted, searchable list. This page builds the smallest useful network, in the order the recipes of AE2 19.2 (Minecraft 1.21.1) require.

1. Meteorites: presses, sky stone and certus quartz

AE2 starts at a meteorite. Its outer shell is Sky Stone (needed for the controller), it often contains budding certus quartz, and the Mysterious Cube in its center holds the four inscriber presses. Keep the presses: they are never used up, and the Inscriber can copy them with an iron block.

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Inscriber Logic Press + Block of Iron → Inscriber Logic Press

Certus quartz grows as buds on Flawless Budding Certus Quartz and the other budding blocks; break the fully grown cluster for Certus Quartz Crystal. A Growth Accelerator next to the budding block speeds this up.

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2. Charger, Inscriber and fluix

Build a Charger and a Wooden Crank — turning the crank by hand powers the charger, no network needed. Charge certus quartz, then drop charged certus quartz, redstone dust and nether quartz together into water: they turn into two Fluix Crystals.

5 × any Iron Ingot + 2 × any Copper Ingot → Charger

4 × any Stick + any Copper Ingot → Wooden Crank

Certus Quartz Crystal → Charged Certus Quartz Crystal

Charged Certus Quartz Crystal + Redstone Dust + Nether Quartz → 2 × Fluix Crystal

The Inscriber makes the three processors every network part needs. First it prints: a press plus one material gives a printed circuit (the press stays). Then it assembles: printed circuit on top, redstone in the middle, printed silicon at the bottom. Silicon comes from smelting certus quartz dust.

5 × any Iron Ingot + 2 × Piston + any Copper Ingot → Inscriber

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Inscriber Silicon Press + any Silicon → Printed Silicon

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Inscriber Logic Press + any Gold Ingot → Printed Logic Circuit

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Inscriber Calculation Press + Certus Quartz Crystal → Printed Calculation Circuit

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Inscriber Engineering Press + any Diamond → Printed Engineering Circuit

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Printed Engineering Circuit + Redstone Dust + Printed Silicon → Engineering Processor

Processor	Printed with	Used for
Logic Processor	Gold ingot	Terminals, storage components, most buses
Calculation Processor	Certus quartz crystal	Autocrafting parts and bigger storage components
Engineering Processor	Diamond	Controller, ME Drive, Pattern Provider

3. The five blocks of a first network

Power — an Energy Acceptor takes energy from any mod's generator (Forge Energy) and turns it into AE. Without other mods, a Vibration Chamber burns fuel for AE power, and an Energy Cell stores it.
Controller — the ME Controller powers the network and hands out channels.
Storage — an ME Drive holds up to 10 storage cells; start with a 1k ME Item Storage Cell.
Access — a ME Terminal (or better a ME Crafting Terminal) placed on a cable or a block face.
Cables — Fluix ME Glass Cable connects everything; four cables come from one quartz fiber and two fluix.

4 × any Iron Ingot + 4 × Quartz Glass + any Copper Ingot → Energy Acceptor

4 × Sky Stone Block + 4 × Fluix Crystal + Engineering Processor → ME Controller

4 × any Iron Ingot + 2 × Engineering Processor + 2 × Fluix ME Glass Cable → ME Drive

2 × Quartz Glass + 3 × any Redstone Dust + 1k ME Storage Component + 2 × any Iron Ingot + any Copper Ingot → 1k ME Item Storage Cell

Formation Core + any Bright Illuminated Panel (#ae2:illuminated_panel) + Logic Processor + Annihilation Core → ME Terminal

Quartz Fiber + 2 × any Fluix Crystal → 4 × Fluix ME Glass Cable

Loading the 3D view…

Tap or click a block to see what it is.

The Vibration Chamber burns fuel into AE power; the Energy Cell buffers it; the controller sits next to them.
A cable from the controller to the ME Drive; put a 1k storage cell into the drive.
A terminal on a cable next to the drive line — open it to see and use the network's storage.

Materials 6 kinds · 7 items

ME Controllerstep 1×1
Energy Cellstep 1×1
Vibration Chamberstep 1×1
Fluix ME Glass Cablestep 2×2
ME Drivestep 2×1
ME Terminalstep 3×1

Layer planLayer 1 is the bottom · north is up · 5 × 1 × 2 blocks

The layer plan appears with the 3D view.

A first ME network without other mods: Vibration Chamber and Energy Cell for power, controller, ME Drive (put a 1k cell into it) and a terminal.Textures, models and item names © AlgorithmX2, Ridanisaurus and the Applied Energistics 2 team, used with permission. Vanilla textures © Mojang.

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4. Put it together

Place the controller and connect a generator to the energy acceptor; connect the acceptor to the controller with cable.
Run a cable from the controller to the ME Drive and put a storage cell into it.
Place a terminal on the cable (it attaches to the side of the cable) and open it — you see the drive's empty space.
Put items in: they are stored on the cell. Pull them out again with a click, or search by name.

Note Without a controller, up to 8 devices still work together as a small “ad-hoc” network. With a controller the network can grow far beyond that — read Channels Explained before it gets big.

Tip A 1k cell is small. Storage cells can be upgraded later without losing their contents: combine the cell with a bigger component in a crafting grid.

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1k ME Item Storage Cell + 4k ME Storage Component → 4k ME Item Storage Cell + 1k ME Storage Component

Recipes, names and numbers are read from the mod files of Applied Energistics 2 19.2.18 for Minecraft 1.21.1 (NeoForge). Not affiliated with the mod authors, Mojang or Microsoft.