AE2 for Newbies (A Reference Guide for the Rest Of Us!)

ratchet freak

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Forgot about the terminal being a facade. Still good to know.

Not exactly. I'm thinking in three dimensions here. so the center block is an MA. All six sides of that are surrounded by interfaces. Each of the interfaces is then surrounded by MA's except on the outsides for cable, and each corner has an interface connecting to three MA's. So you've got 14 interfaces worth of crafting pattern slots, and 13 MA's.

Yeah, I'm not sure what he was thinking with that recipe.
but that doesn't pack... a 2 layer alternating checker board will let every interface have 5 MACs (shared between 5 interfaces)

careful selection of where each pattern is will allow for pretty fast crafting :)
 

ShneekeyTheLost

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Forgot about the terminal being a facade. Still good to know.
Yea, you can also craft an interface into a facade for compact builds. Pretty nifty.

Not exactly. I'm thinking in three dimensions here. so the center block is an MA. All six sides of that are surrounded by interfaces. Each of the interfaces is then surrounded by MA's except on the outsides for cable, and each corner has an interface connecting to three MA's. So you've got 14 interfaces worth of crafting pattern slots, and 13 MA's.
I'm not sure that will work, because I'm fairly certain that each interface needs an ME Cable, I don't think MA's will transfer data. Plus you'll need a channel per interface.

The prototype I have set up is for a wall rather than a cube of crafting, with a checkerboard of interfaces and MA's, with MA's sticking out behind each of the interfaces. So each section of wall is a total of 6 blocks tall, with two interfaces and three MA's on each vertical, but alternating rows are shifted up one block, then four wide plus spare MA's poking out the side. This gives you 8 Interfaces for a total theoretical 72 recipes (slightly more than the 63 offered by a single pattern provider in the old MAC) and maximum efficiency and capacity, assuming you don't put recipes you'll need simultaneously within close proximity to each other.

Yeah, I'm not sure what he was thinking with that recipe.
He was thinking that DW20 runs too much cable, so nerf the recipe.
:p

More seriously, he's intending AE to be less of an 'automate all the things' mod and more of a speciality mod. The price of cable is intended to discourage an 'automate all the things' mindset.
 

KingTriaxx

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Yeah, those interface facades are going to be awesome for processing patterns.

I'd rather have a cube than a wall dedicated to crafting, since I can bury the cube underground, where a wall would need to be built around.

Ah. Well, I've always been pretty cable conservative, but there are just some places where you need to run a bunch of cable. On the other hand, between Railcraft, Tesseracts, and pipes, moving things long distances isn't what I use AE for anyway.
 

Zenthon_127

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More seriously, he's intending AE to be less of an 'automate all the things' mod and more of a speciality mod. The price of cable is intended to discourage an 'automate all the things' mindset.
While this is understandable, it has also left us with few to no mods in that category. We have LP, which certainly has the functionality we need, but LP is extremely laggy in massive quantities, slow and for me horrifically, unbearably ugly (plz save us Unity).

I would take these nerfs a lot easier if we had a real alternative to AE1. But the epic scale of bases I saw in 1.6 is something that I'll never see again for ages because there's no way in hell AE2 or LP are even close to the sheer lategame power of AE1 (due to cost/complexity and lag respectively). And again, this isn't Algo's fault by any means, I respect his direction, it's just the reality of the situation that we've lost a huge amount of power to the extent that automating all the things is easily 10x as difficult now (and it was still very hard to do in 1.6). And I'm sad, because I saw some really epic stuff come out of AE1's ease of use and the fact that you COULD just automate an entire biome's worth of land with this one massive juggernaut of a system.

I would argue the nerfs to autocrafting and channels were also completely uncalled for, but I will concede that AE needed to be pushed back in the tech tree so it wasn't a day 2 thing. That was dumb.
 

ShneekeyTheLost

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While this is understandable, it has also left us with few to no mods in that category. We have LP, which certainly has the functionality we need, but LP is extremely laggy in massive quantities, slow and for me horrifically, unbearably ugly (plz save us Unity).

I would take these nerfs a lot easier if we had a real alternative to AE1. But the epic scale of bases I saw in 1.6 is something that I'll never see again for ages because there's no way in hell AE2 or LP are even close to the sheer lategame power of AE1 (due to cost/complexity and lag respectively). And again, this isn't Algo's fault by any means, I respect his direction, it's just the reality of the situation that we've lost a huge amount of power to the extent that automating all the things is easily 10x as difficult now (and it was still very hard to do in 1.6). And I'm sad, because I saw some really epic stuff come out of AE1's ease of use and the fact that you COULD just automate an entire biome's worth of land with this one massive juggernaut of a system.

I would argue the nerfs to autocrafting and channels were also completely uncalled for, but I will concede that AE needed to be pushed back in the tech tree so it wasn't a day 2 thing. That was dumb.
I wouldn't actually say that it prevented bases from being as large, so much as the AE networks themselves are going to be more compact. This isn't actually a bad thing, and it won't really impact things on the grand scale if you think about things in a slightly different light.

Bases with Fluix Cable running all over the place are probably a thing of the past. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you can't use AE to automate everything, just that it is going to be separate self-contained systems connected using some other mod.

AE2 is a much more... decentralized mod. Things can be produced locally, then exported to your main storage area. For example, let's say you have a farm that you want to automate food production from. Local produce is piped to an ME Interface which then stores the produce on disk. Then you've got an Interface with several MA's attached to it set up to auto-craft the food item of choice. As long as you have all resources local, there's no need to hook this system up to the larger system directly. Instead, you can set up an Interface to automatically provide the end-result, which then gets piped out of it and sent to your main storage area. Since you are using actual pipes to provide it, you aren't really needing to worry about it eating up channels. Total channel cost on this ad-hoc system? Well, you've got one interface, actually it can be used for both importing and exporting since it can provide the result and accept any imports, a Drive with disk for storage, an Interface for crafting, and a Terminal. Oh, and the 1k CPU for a total of 5 channels, and it produces one useful thing.

But more importantly, it doesn't eat up channels from your main system, which can use a single input interface for all peripheral local systems to input into.

What I believe was seen as an 'abuse' was DW20 using P2P tunnels to run liquids and power all over the place 'because why not'. If it is cheaper and easier to run power and fluids using AE P2P tunnels rather than running pipe... something needs to be adjusted. I believe that has been dealt with.

Now, if it could all be connected using Logistic Ducts? Mmmm... now that would be fun times.
 

Zenthon_127

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I wouldn't actually say that it prevented bases from being as large, so much as the AE networks themselves are going to be more compact. This isn't actually a bad thing, and it won't really impact things on the grand scale if you think about things in a slightly different light.

Bases with Fluix Cable running all over the place are probably a thing of the past. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you can't use AE to automate everything, just that it is going to be separate self-contained systems connected using some other mod.

AE2 is a much more... decentralized mod. Things can be produced locally, then exported to your main storage area. For example, let's say you have a farm that you want to automate food production from. Local produce is piped to an ME Interface which then stores the produce on disk. Then you've got an Interface with several MA's attached to it set up to auto-craft the food item of choice. As long as you have all resources local, there's no need to hook this system up to the larger system directly. Instead, you can set up an Interface to automatically provide the end-result, which then gets piped out of it and sent to your main storage area. Since you are using actual pipes to provide it, you aren't really needing to worry about it eating up channels. Total channel cost on this ad-hoc system? Well, you've got one interface, actually it can be used for both importing and exporting since it can provide the result and accept any imports, a Drive with disk for storage, an Interface for crafting, and a Terminal. Oh, and the 1k CPU for a total of 5 channels, and it produces one useful thing.

But more importantly, it doesn't eat up channels from your main system, which can use a single input interface for all peripheral local systems to input into.

What I believe was seen as an 'abuse' was DW20 using P2P tunnels to run liquids and power all over the place 'because why not'. If it is cheaper and easier to run power and fluids using AE P2P tunnels rather than running pipe... something needs to be adjusted. I believe that has been dealt with.

Now, if it could all be connected using Logistic Ducts? Mmmm... now that would be fun times.
I suppose this is all true. Channels though make it just such as hassle to do anything on a semi-large scale without just spamming thick cable everywhere (I'm gonna be making wool farms, ain't I :/). And I still don't get the nerfs to autocrafting, to which there is no true replacement.

The one thing, even taking in your advice, that I'll miss will be ranged access of my items. Yes I know about LP, but that's ugly as crap and less useful than the NEI-search, filtered epicness of AE. The ranged emitter just won't do it, and I can't run 2k cables everywhere to get Terminals located in all my sub-bases. Maybe RemoteIO?
 

ratchet freak

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I suppose this is all true. Channels though make it just such as hassle to do anything on a semi-large scale without just spamming thick cable everywhere (I'm gonna be making wool farms, ain't I :/). And I still don't get the nerfs to autocrafting, to which there is no true replacement.

The one thing, even taking in your advice, that I'll miss will be ranged access of my items. Yes I know about LP, but that's ugly as crap and less useful than the NEI-search, filtered epicness of AE. The ranged emitter just won't do it, and I can't run 2k cables everywhere to get Terminals located in all my sub-bases. Maybe RemoteIO?
long runs are cheaper using P2P on a ad-hoc (you can run 4*32 channels to several parts of your base without needing a second controller)
 

Tylor

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Nov 24, 2012
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Yes, it was nerfed a lot, but still usable. Really big hassle is finding four presses. Then powering ME network can be also somewhat of an issue, unless you have some OP energy source, such as MFR Biogen.
 

OCP

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*Now, if you are on a multiplayer server, once all four have been located, you can copy them easy enough. But if you are playing single player, finding them all can be a royal PITA.*

Skimmed through it, not sure how I feel about this, I guess at first glance the dev was trying to make the ME system into more of a late game item I think. But Im curious about this statement, how would one duplicate them in MP that couldnt be done the same way in SMP? or is it just meaning like you can get a duplicate from other players?
 

ShneekeyTheLost

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Skimmed through it, not sure how I feel about this, I guess at first glance the dev was trying to make the ME system into more of a late game item I think. But Im curious about this statement, how would one duplicate them in MP that couldnt be done the same way in SMP? or is it just meaning like you can get a duplicate from other players?
Duplicates are worthless in a single player game, because they are never destroyed. Duplicates are only of value if you have multiple people requiring them. And when you have multiple people searching different areas, you have a greater chance of locating all the patterns. Once you find them, you can duplicate them easily enough. It's finding the originals that is the pain.
 

ratchet freak

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Duplicates are worthless in a single player game, because they are never destroyed. Duplicates are only of value if you have multiple people requiring them. And when you have multiple people searching different areas, you have a greater chance of locating all the patterns. Once you find them, you can duplicate them easily enough. It's finding the originals that is the pain.
the only reason you would dupe them in SSP would be insurance against that creeper, or increased autocrafting power (which you won't need after you have your network setup)
 

Loufmier

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all that press-related talk gave me an evil idea for server monetization... and i don't think i'm the only one who thought about it.
 
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KingTriaxx

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Normally in Single Player you'd have to find the plates yourself. In Multiplayer you're not the only one looking and you can copy the plates someone else has found if you can't find your own. IE player one needs the engineering press and can't find a meteor with it, but player two has one. So instead of continuing to search for a meteor, they can just take a block of iron, and get a copy of player two's plate. Otherwise you'd be forever running to player two's base to use his plate until you found your own.

Can I get extra channels from a multiblock controller with a Transvector Interface?
 

ratchet freak

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Can I get extra channels from a multiblock controller with a Transvector Interface?

that depends very much on whether the transvector accounts for the AE2 API and how the controller gets the channels out,

I've noticed that if the block is the active part (MFR grinder item output for example) then the transvector doesn't work
 

RedBoss

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I'm just now trying AE2. Thanks for the text guide. I really hate that the inscribers force you immediately down the path of autocrafting. To save your sanity using this mod, you must autocraft from the beginning. argh
 
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ShneekeyTheLost

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I'm just now trying AE2. Thanks for the text guide. I really hate that the inscribers force you immediately down the path of autocrafting. To save your sanity using this mod, you must autocraft from the beginning. argh
I wouldn't say it forces you to auto-craft from the beginning. The inscribers themselves are fairly easy to automate using Thermal Dynamics, EnderIO, or any of several other ways. Lemme 'splain.

Each of the four circuits (gold, diamond, pure certus, silicon) just require one of that item to be inserted, then the result pulled out. So you just filter/sort the appropriate material to the appropriate inscriber. Then for step two, you just need a silicon chip, the resource chip, and redstone. So again, you just filter to allow silicon in the top, redstone on the side, and any of the other three chips on the bottom.

When you get around to requesting it from an ME Network, you tell it that one <resource> + 1 Silicon + 1 Redstone = 1 <chipset>. The resource and silicon will go to their respective inscribers and the redstone goes to the second step of the process. Then the two chipsets go into the second step and output appropriately to the same ME Interface that requested it.
 
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ratchet freak

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They are autocraftable with just vanilla hoppers, just hit the front with a wrench once to turn them sideways.
 

ganon5069

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Can you maybe give an explaination on P2Ps? Cuz i understand that they can carry channels, liquids and whatevers but i can't seem to figure them out.