IV+ Mine Site AE Architecture Operations
Preface
This guide is intended for when you’ve reached the LuV stage and can use the automatic pull feature for inventory input. However, when building multi-block ore processing systems at the IV stage, you can first set up the AE architecture and temporarily manually mark the ME inputs.
This AE architecture mostly uses tag-based storage buses for filtering, while also allowing manual tagging of minerals and mineral powders that require special handling on the storage bus, eliminating the need to write out long blacklists of tags.
Note that the automatic pull of inventory inputs in version 054 has a bug: when the machine is running in parallel or batch mode, using inventory inputs will cause AE to consume [total item count % number of parallel processes] items. If the total item count is less than the number of recipes executed in a single parallel/batch run, this bug won’t trigger. The amount of minerals consumed is actually negligible compared to the total mineral supply, but if you’re really concerned about even that small loss, you’ll just have to mark them manually ().
Machine Installation
1 crusher, 4 ore washers, 8 thermal separators, and 2 grinders; 1 screen, 1 centrifuge for separating mineral powder, 2 electrolyzers for electrolyzing mineral powder, and 1 furnace along with several distillation columns for producing distilled water. The exact number of machines to install can be doubled based on the above.
AE Network Installation
As shown in the diagram, there are a total of 12 AE networks. The raw ore network is used to store mined raw ores; you can install a wireless connector on this network to allow direct connection from extraterrestrial mining machines. The product network is used to store finished products and can be accessed directly via the main network.
The ore-washing screen is connected to the ore-washing plant; the smelting screen is connected to the industrial smelting furnace; the screening screen is connected to the screening machine; the thermal separation screen is connected to the thermal separator; the grinding screen is connected to the grinder; the feed-screen for untreated mineral powder is connected to the electrolytic cell and the centrifuge, requiring manual labeling of which mineral powder is to be subjected to electrolysis and which is to be centrifuged. The clean-powder centrifugation screen is likewise connected to the centrifuge.
The small AE network above the raw ore bin is the crushing circuit, connecting to the crusher.
Finally, all output buses connect to the intermediate logistics network, and the output storage of electrolyzers and centrifuges can be directly connected to the product network.
AE Network Logistics
The Crumbling Network manually flags minerals on the Storage Bus to filter access to the Raw Ore Network. The Storage Bus is set to read-only, with an Inverter Card added, where you manually flag the minerals that need to be smelted directly.
At the heart of the network architecture lies the Intermediate Logistics Network. This network has no storage capacity and uniformly distributes all outputs from the ME output buses across different networks. If you’ve previously stockpiled a large quantity of minerals—some of which may even be halfway processed—you can simply dump them directly into the IO port’s conveyor once the network logistics have been set up. The connections for the Intermediate Logistics Network are shown in the diagram below.
Set the tag storage bus connected to the pending ore powder network to write-only, with the tag settings as shown in the figure below, for diverting ore powder and various gemstones.
Note: Starting from version 0.5.5, the tag gt: has been changed to c:
Similarly, the tag storage bus connected to the ore washing net should be set to write-only, with the whitelist set to c:crushed_ores and the blacklist left empty, in order to sort crushed ores.
The tag storage bus connection for thermal isolation networks is set to write-only, with the whitelist set to c:purified_ores and the blacklist left empty, to route purified ores.
The tag storage bus configuration for connecting the grinding grid is write-only, with the tag set to the whitelist c:refined_ores and the blacklist left empty, used for sorting refined ores.
The tag storage bus connected to the Clean Mineral Dust network is set to write-only, with the whitelist set to c:pure_dusts and the blacklist left empty, in order to route clean mineral dust.
The storage bus settings for the connection product network are write-only, as shown in the figure below, to divert certain special products without tags, such as coal.
Then there are some additional logistics settings. First, we separate the ore washing from direct smelting: connect a storage bus to the ore-washing network and attach the furnace-network interface to it. Set the storage bus to write-only, increase its priority; then manually mark the crushed ore that needs to be smelted directly. This way, the crushed ore requiring smelting will go straight into the furnace network. At the same time, this network needs to draw distilled water from the main network. Meanwhile, the furnace network draws the minerals that need to be smelted directly from the raw-ore network; some ores (such as sulfur ore) only increase production when processed at the mining site, but because the quantity is large and they can’t be crushed and smelted again, you can choose to smelt them directly.
Next, we screen and retain the pure ores that require special processing. We connect two storage buses to the thermal isolation network, both set to write-only, with higher priority. One of them is connected to the product network interface, marking the pure ores that need to be retained, such as Sheldon Ore. The other is connected to the screening network interface, marking the pure ores that need to be screened.
Finally, there’s the pending ore powder grid, which connects to a storage bus and attaches to the product grid interface. Set it to write-only, increase the priority, and install an invert card. Mark the ore powders inside that require electrolysis, centrifugation, and other processing steps.
Of course, you can choose to merge the product grid with the ore powder processing grid and connect the product grid directly to the electrolyzer, manually marking the ore powders that need to be electrolyzed. I’m doing this simply because I don’t want to see these powders flashing around in the main grid.
Precautions
Make sure each network has enough storage space; otherwise, logistics may run into problems. For the stone powder in the product network, it’s recommended to store it in super chests or drawers and enable the overflow destruction feature—otherwise half your inventory will be filled with stone powder ( ), or you can just destroy it outright.