A core mechanic of Applied Energistics 2 is the concept of ‘cable channels’, which limit the number of devices that can be connected to a single run of ME cable. A normal ME Cable can carry up to 8 channels, and a ME Dense Cable can carry up to 32 channels.

It is often desired to connect many item storage blocks, such as barrels, Deep Storage Units, Caches, etc. to the ME network. This is done with the ME Storage Bus.

However the number of ME Storage Buses required is usually more than the number of channels available on the ME network; some means of multiplexing multiple ME Storage Buses onto fewer cable channels is required.

I know of at least two ways to do this:

1. The P2P Tunnel allows 32 channels to be compressed into one channel on the main ME network, allowing much more efficient use of ME cable channels on the main ME network. The sub-network is fully integrated with the main network; the sub-net can access all capabilities of the main network, and vice versa. This is the most general-purpose way of coupling an ME sub-network onto the main network.
2. An entirely separate ME sub-network can be built for storage, and a ME Storage Bus + ME Interface used to couple the sub-network’s storage onto the main system. This is cheaper and easier to set up. The sub-network cannot access the full capability of the main network (i.e. auto-crafting), but this downside does not matter in this application.

Two designs based on option 2) are presented below.

The first design uses ‘ad-hoc networks’, which have no ME Controller, to connect up to seven ME Storage Buses to the main network. The arrangement can be repeated multiple times to get further lots of seven Storage Buses.

Detailed design drawing:

DES-0001 SHT1 - Full size PDF

The second design uses a separate “slave network” with its own ME Controller. This allows many more ME Storage Buses to be connected.

Detailed design drawing:

DES-0001 SHT2 - Full size PDF

Other suggestions welcome, for achieving the same effect at lower cost or complexity.

Previous article in this series: Scavenging gold, steel, and iron from mob grinder drops.

From commenter snateraar (2015-05-16) we have:

Interesting and clear graphics you’ve made.

Anyway, it’s super easy to create storage with little channels used. This can be done using storage buses that are connected directly to an interface.

This creates a subnetwork, which has seven spare channels that can be used for drives.

If you replace one of the drives with another interface and link another storage bus to it, you can place even more drives. Make sure you give every network separate power through use of quartz cable.

Anyway, this can be extended indefinitely and is the basic principle of the super soaryn drive.

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