Colony ME Access

Colony ME Access

Colony ME Access is a MineColonies + Applied Energistics 2 integration and quality-of-life addon designed to make managing larger colonies less tedious.

The goal of the mod is to improve the connection between your colony, its builders/citizens, and your ME network while also reducing some of the repetitive setup involved with MineColonies crafting workers.

This is currently an early release and will continue to receive additional MineColonies-focused features over time.

Features

ME Colony Bridge

Connect your MineColonies colony with an Applied Energistics 2 network through the Colony ME Access system.

The interface provides ME connection information including:

• Online
• Offline
• No Bridge
• Loading

The linked colony can then interact with the connected ME system through Colony ME Access features.

How to Use

1. Place the ME Colony Bridge

Place the ME Colony Bridge directly next to your MineColonies Warehouse.

The bridge needs to be adjacent to the Warehouse so Colony ME Access can expose items from your AE2 network to the colony's request system.

You do not need to run ME cables from your AE2 network all the way to the Warehouse.

2. Link the Bridge to AE2

Take an ME Linker and use it to connect the bridge to your Applied Energistics 2 network.

1. Hold the ME Linker.
2. Right-click the AE2 network block you want to use as the connection point, such as your ME Controller.
3. Right-click the ME Colony Bridge with the linker to complete the connection.
4. A confirmation message will appear when the link is created.

Once connected, the bridge can access the storage and crafting capabilities of that ME network.

3. Link a Colony Clipboard

The Colony Clipboard is used to manage the bridge and your builders.

1. Hold the Colony Clipboard.
2. Right-click the ME Colony Bridge to link the Clipboard to it.
3. Right-click a Builder's Hut with the Clipboard to add that builder.
4. Repeat this for any additional Builder's Huts you want to manage.

A single Clipboard can store up to 10 linked builders.

4. Open the Clipboard

After linking the bridge and builders, hold the Colony Clipboard and right-click normally to open the Colony ME Access interface.

Select a builder on the left side of the interface to view their current missing resources.

5. Fulfill Builder Resources

Resources can have several available actions depending on their current state:

• Send - Sends an item already stored in AE2 directly toward fulfilling the builder's requirement.
• Craft - Starts an AE2 crafting job for an item that is not currently available but can be autocrafted.
• Pattern - Creates a Colony ME Access Domum Ornamentum pattern when one is required.
• Crafting - Indicates that AE2 is already producing the requested item.

Once crafted items become available, they can be sent to the builder.

6. Domum Ornamentum Patterns

Some MineColonies structures require specifically configured Domum Ornamentum blocks.

When the interface displays Pattern:

1. Make sure your ME network contains at least one AE2 Blank Pattern.
2. Click Pattern beside the required resource.
3. Colony ME Access consumes one Blank Pattern.
4. A pattern for that exact Domum Ornamentum block is added to the Clipboard.
5. AE2 can then use that pattern when the item needs to be crafted.

The Clipboard can hold up to 18 Domum Ornamentum patterns.

7. Resource Limits

The Limit field controls how much of a particular item Colony ME Access is allowed to send.

Enter a number and press Enter to save it.

For example:

• 64 - allows up to 64 of that item
• 500 - allows up to 500
• 0 - unlimited

This can be useful if you want to prevent your colony from draining important materials from your ME system.

Connection Status

The top of the Clipboard interface shows the current ME connection state:

• AE: Online - The bridge is linked and the ME network is accessible.
• AE: Offline - A bridge is linked, but its AE2 network is currently unavailable.
• AE: No Bridge - The Clipboard has not been linked to an ME Colony Bridge.
• AE: Loading - The interface is waiting for updated connection information.

A typical setup looks like:

AE2 Network
    ↓
ME Linker
    ↓
ME Colony Bridge
    ↓
MineColonies Warehouse

Colony Clipboard
    ├── ME Colony Bridge
    ├── Builder's Hut 1
    ├── Builder's Hut 2
    ├── Builder's Hut 3
    └── ...up to 10 Builders

Builder Resource Overview

View your colony's builders directly through the Colony ME Access interface.

The GUI can display:

• Individual builders
• Builder hut level
• Current required resources
• Current construction-related information
• Resource availability
• AE2 crafting/pattern information

This gives you a centralized way to see what your builders are waiting for without repeatedly running between builder huts.

AE2 Resource Fulfillment

Colony requests can be fulfilled using items available from the connected AE2 network.

The interface distinguishes between resources that can simply be sent and resources that would need to be crafted.

This is intended to make AE2 function as a much more useful storage system for large MineColonies settlements rather than requiring constant manual movement of items between storage systems.

Automatic MineColonies Recipe Learning

Colony ME Access can automatically teach compatible recipes to MineColonies crafting workers.

Instead of manually entering huge numbers of recipes into every crafting hut, the mod analyzes recipes that the worker is actually capable of producing and progressively unlocks them as the building is upgraded.

The system follows building progression roughly like this:

Level 1

• A small set of prioritized recipes

Level 2

• Approximately 30% of compatible recipes

Level 3

• Approximately 55%

Level 4

• Approximately 80%

Level 5

• All compatible recipes

At Level 5, the automatic recipe system is designed to allow the worker access to all compatible recipes instead of being restricted by the normal learned-recipe limit.

Recipes that MineColonies does not consider compatible with that profession are not automatically added.

The system also respects recipes that have been explicitly denied.

Automatic Recipe Updates

When enabled, colonies are periodically checked for:

• Newly constructed crafting huts
• Building upgrades
• Newly available recipes
• Changes to supported crafting workers

Recipe updates occur automatically approximately every 30 seconds.

Automatic recipe management is disabled by default, so installing the mod will not immediately modify the recipes of every colony.

Commands

Automatic recipe learning can be controlled with:

/colonymeaccess autorecipes on

Enables automatic recipe management for the colony.

/colonymeaccess autorecipes off

Disables further automatic recipe updates.

Already learned recipes are not removed simply by disabling the feature.

/colonymeaccess autorecipes status

Shows whether automatic recipe management is currently enabled.

Management permissions are required to change these settings.

Additional Colony Controls

The Colony ME Access interface also includes several useful colony/building controls such as:

• Locate
• Recall
• Restart
• Unlink

These are intended to reduce the amount of menu hopping required while managing a large colony.

Current Version

Mod Version: 0.2.0

Minecraft: 1.21.1

Mod Loader: NeoForge

Colony ME Access is designed for use alongside:

• MineColonies
• Applied Energistics 2

Compatibility with additional versions or heavily modified MineColonies/AE2 installations is not guaranteed unless specifically listed on the download.

Early Development

This mod is still in active development.

The current release focuses primarily on:

• MineColonies / AE2 integration
• Colony resource management
• Builder resource visibility
• Request fulfillment
• Automatic crafting-recipe management
• General MineColonies quality-of-life improvements

More features may be added as development continues.

Bug reports and feedback are welcome, especially for unusual MineColonies crafting recipes, modded recipes, or interactions with large colonies.

AI Development Disclaimer

Important: This mod was developed primarily with the assistance of AI.

A significant portion of the programming, debugging, and implementation was generated or assisted by AI tools based on the features and behavior I wanted the mod to have. I directed the development, tested the mod in-game, compiled and debugged builds, and iterated on the functionality, but I want to be transparent that most of the code itself was produced with AI assistance.

Because of this, there may be unusual bugs, compatibility issues, inefficient code, or edge cases that have not yet been discovered.

Please report any problems you encounter so they can be investigated and improved in future versions.

This mod is an independent addon and is not affiliated with or officially supported by the developers of MineColonies or Applied Energistics 2.