ME Storage Bus

ME Storage Bus
Name	ME Storage Bus
Source Mod	Applied Energistics
ID Name	Unknown
Type	Block
Stackable	Yes (64)
Solid	Yes
Transparent	No
Affected by Gravity	No
Emits Light	No
Flammable	No
Required Tool	Unknown

The ME Storage Bus, when attached to an block/tile entity with an inventory (generally a storage unit, though occasionally a machine) and then further on to an ME Network, will allow you to expand your ME Network to include that inventory's contents, making it accessible directly from the ME Access Terminal, and in addition, when set-up properly, making the inventory the default location for its assigned goods.

In practice, the ME Storage Bus operates with qualities of both the ME Import Bus and ME Export Bus, though lacking the automatic insertion & extraction that these buses offer. Instead, the Storage Bus waits passively, extracting items only when someone or something on the network requests one of its assigned items, and inserting them only when more of an item enters in the larger ME Network as a whole.

The Storage Bus supports a wide range of items from vanilla Minecraft's chests to other mods' storage, such as a Better Barrels, Diamond Chests, Deep Storage Units and more.

Recipe

You can craft it on:

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More

Usage

The ME Storage Bus's uses, outlined above, are more or less adequate for explaining the theory of its use. In addition, when uses one inside the game, one will have a rare issue setting the bus up, but none of these issues are serious, and all can be easily rectified.

First to note is the GUI. Right click the storage bus when placed to reveal this. It's very simple, only a large inventory grid. Upon placing this, specify each and every item you want to go in here. Once specifications have been made, NOTHING should ever enter this via the ME Network. Occasionally when placing a bus, a storage device will not accept the side you have chosen. This happens rarely. Just try different sides until you've found one that works.

Once the Storage Bus is attached to the larger ME Network properly, you may notice a few items cycling in and out of there that you didn't expect to do so. In single-item storage units like the Deep Storage Unit or the Barrel this can be extremely frustrating, as stopping this behavior involves filling at least 2-3 stacks of items until the storage unit is stable. It's advised to do this before attaching it to the network to save yourself frustration.

Storage buses interfacing to storage devices destined to hold vast quantities of things will fill up quite slowly upon initially interfacing with the network. One can speed this process along by temporarily employing an ME Export Bus or two by attaching it to the storage device (NOT the Storage Bus!) on the appropriate side(s).

There are some other possible uses for the Storage Bus outside of simply adding other kinds of storage to your ME Network. Other uses of the Storage Bus rely on using its inherent properties of passivity and applying them to machines instead of storage devices. As the storage bus serves as a selective import/export device with nothing going either way unless it's requested or added by the network, this is a good possible way to limit overproduction of goods.

Known Bugs

GregTech Machine Incompatability

Combining a Storage bus with a GregTech 4 Industrial Electrolyzer, Assembling Machine, or Quantum Chest will cause a recurring and unavoidable error in either single-player or multi-player, grinding the server to a halt when the error first happens, disconnecting everybody. Upon reboot, it will continue doing this whenever the chunk with the offended item is loaded. Possible fixes to this bug (after ensuring to start off with a full world backup of the problem world in case you mess it up further):

BEST: Open the AE Zipfile, and delete appeng/proxy/ProxyGregTech.class". After doing that I destroyed the storage bus in question and re-installed that file.

BEST: Restoring a recent backup, if you make regular back-ups.

GOOD: Edit the world file using MCedit to remove the Industrial Electrolyzer, Assembling Machine, or Quantum Chest

BAD: Changing the GregTech Machine ID in the GT Server Config Files and then changing my client's configs to match, then starting the server and connecting. This will unload the machine causing the problem. It would also be possible to do a similar thing with Applied Energistics via the config (though I'm not aware of the Item ID to try there.) You will have to replace both your items and items any of your users lost during the unload of either mod, though if there aren't a lot of chunkloaders, the damage could be minimal.

WORST: You could also temporarily remove the mods outright, start the server/game, allow time for the items to register as disappeared, then stop the server and reinstall them. Keep in mind that this option will destroy machines, ores, and items in inventories if they happen to be loaded in time.

WILD CARD: A final option would be to, after first making a world back-up and figuring out the chunk's region file with one the available online calculators, to then delete the offending region file where this happened. This deletes a 512x512 area of your world and resets it to its original state. Generally ill advised unless you somehow know that whole chunk is junk, anyhow.