Storage & Applied Energistics — Getting Started
Storage in Prominence II is its own progression track — you climb from a few chests up to a fully auto-sorting digital network. This note lays out that path and the beginner route into Applied Energistics 2 (AE2), the pack’s real answer to “how do I stop drowning in chests.” See Storage & Inventory Mods and Tech & Automation Mods for the full mod lists.
The storage progression (chests → drawers → AE2)
There is no auto-categorize-into-separate-chests mod installed (no Sophisticated Storage equivalent). The real end-state is AE2. The sensible climb:
- Chests, upgraded. Start with a Chest and upgrade it via Chest Upgrade items (a Blank Chest Upgrade + copper to begin) — see Getting Started. Iron Chests: Restocked adds a tiered line of much larger chests, and Nether Chested is a single chest holding 8× the usual capacity.
- On-the-go storage. Traveler’s Backpack is one of the best early upgrades — wearable, upgradeable packs with a weapon/tool rack and installable Upgrades (Crafting, Void-with-filter, etc.). Carry On lets you pick up and move a full chest or furnace in your empty hands instead of emptying it first.
- Bulk single-item storage. If you want mass storage of individual item types before AE2, the Create/tech side and drawer-style blocks bridge the gap. (Note: the pack leans on AE2 rather than a dedicated drawers mod as the mid-tier — flagged as general guidance; check EMI/JEI for what’s craftable.)
- Digital storage — AE2. One ME network that holds, sorts, and auto-crafts thousands of item types from a terminal instead of a wall of chests. Steep, but the payoff is the whole reason the other tiers are “temporary.”
The beginner path into AE2
AE2 has its own Quest Book chapter — follow it, it walks the exact recipes. The early arc, grounded in that chapter:
- Build a Charger, powered manually with a Wooden Crank to start (no power infrastructure needed yet). It charges crystals and makes a Meteorite Compass from a normal compass.
- Craft & charge a Meteorite Compass. It points to the nearest Meteorite within ~2,700 blocks — spinning fast means Sky Stone is in your chunk; spinning slow means keep exploring. Bring an Iron Pickaxe or better (Sky Stone needs it).
- Loot the meteorite. Mine to the center for Certus Quartz Crystals/Blocks and, in the central Sky Chest, your Inscriber Presses — you need these presses to make processors, and they only come from meteorites.
- Charge Certus Quartz in the Charger, then craft Fluix Crystal (Charged Certus + Nether Quartz + Redstone Dust dropped in water — it reacts on its own). Fluix is the foundation of all ME tech.
- Build an Inscriber and make the processors your machines need (each press = one processor type; each operation needs ~1k AE charged up).
- Grow into a Controller + ME Drive + cells + terminal, then Import/Export/Storage Buses to automate.
The big caveat: AE2 is hand-assembled
Cables, terminals, and buses are items you attach by hand, not blocks you can place normally. The machine blocks (drive, controller, energy acceptor) place like any block, but the fluix cables, ME/crafting terminal, and import/export/storage buses must be crafted and physically attached to a cable in-world — they cannot be conjured pre-built. A Certus Quartz or Nether Quartz Wrench rotates blocks and removes individual parts from cables. Plan on assembling the network by hand, part by part.
AE2 add-ons in this pack
Once your network runs, these extend it (see Tech & Automation Mods): MEGA Cells (enormous storage cells), ME Requester (auto-restocking), AE2WTLib (wireless terminals), ExtendedAE (QoL content), Applied Botanics (feeds Botania mana into AE2), and Polymorphic Energistics (AE2 recipes play nicely with the Polymorph recipe-conflict system).
Anticipated questions
Is there a mod that auto-sorts items into separate chests for me? No — nothing like Sophisticated Storage is installed. The closest options are AE2’s Storage Bus + item filters, or a classic vanilla hopper/comparator sorter.
Do I need AE2 to enjoy the pack? No. Plenty of players run on Iron Chests + a Traveler’s Backpack for a long time. AE2 is the endgame convenience, not a requirement.
Why can’t I just place the ME cables and terminal down? Because they’re cable parts, not full blocks — you craft them and attach them to a cable in-world by hand. This is a known AE2 quirk, not a bug.
Where do processor presses come from? Only from meteorites — loot the Sky Chest at a meteorite’s center. Use the Meteorite Compass to find one.
Do I need a power plant before starting AE2? No — the first steps (Charger, crystal charging) run off a hand-cranked Wooden Crank. You’ll want real power (see Tech & Automation Mods, Powah!) once the network grows.