Applied Energistics 2The original ME (Matter Energy) storage and crafting network
About
AE2 turns inventory management into infrastructure: you build an "ME network" of Drives full of Storage Cells, wired together with cables and channels, and accessed through Terminals where every item in the network is searchable and craftable on demand. Add Pattern Terminals + Crafting CPUs and the network can auto-craft any recipe you teach it, even multi-step chains across other mods' machines.
AE2 also has its own resource chain — Certus Quartz and Charged Certus, the silicon / printed-circuit logic chain, fluix dust crystals — all of which you'll mine or grow in a Crystal Growth Chamber.
Things to do
- ME Drive + 4× 1k Storage Cells + ME Terminal — your first "infinite chest"
- Auto-Crafting CPU (Crafting Storage + Co-Processing Units) for on-demand crafting
- Pattern Terminals to teach the network recipes — including multi-step (e.g. logs → planks → sticks → chest)
- Subnetworks: dedicated mini-networks for specific tasks (e.g. ore processing) keep channels manageable
- Interface buses on other mods' machines (Mekanism, Industrial Foregoing, Create) — AE2 becomes the orchestrator
Getting started
Find Certus Quartz Ore (small purple crystals — on OneBlock it drops at stone tier). You need Charged Certus (Quartz + lightning, or a Charger machine), Silicon (sand + redstone in the Inscriber), and 3 Presses (Calculation, Engineering, Logic — usually from Meteor structures, but on OneBlock you'll craft alternatives or use cross-mod bridges). Once you have Energy Acceptor (FE input) + Controller + Drive + Terminal connected with ME Glass Cable, you have a working network. Each cable carries 8 channels — for bigger networks use Dense Cable (32 ch) or split into subnets.
Official documentation
- Official AE2 Player's Guide for 1.16.5 (version-specific!)
- CurseForge — Applied Energistics 2
- FTB Wiki — AE2
- All The Mods Guide — AE2