Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-13413401-20130728125025/@comment-13705676-20130728134643

The ME export- and import buses are used simply to carry resources in and out of the ME system. Export buses need to be hooked up to a machine or storage if you want items to be carried out of the ME system and into such a device (such as a macerator, generator or furnace). If, for instance, you want to feed coal to a furnace from the ME system, hook up an export bus to the bottom slot of the furnace. The same principle applies to a macerator, exept for the fact that the export bus needs to be placed on the top slot of that macerator to feed the macerator items that need to be macerated. Remember to right-click the export bus to specify which items you want to export from the system into the device (or storage unit).

Import buses work in a similar way in that you hook up the bus to a vacant slot of a device or storage unit and specify which items need to bee imported back into the ME system by right-clicking the import bus. Example: you need a furnace to make cobble turn to stone; hook up an export bus to the bottom slot to feed coal or charcoal into the furnace, another export bus to the top slot to feed it cobble, and finally an import bus on a vacant slot to import the resulting stone into your ME system.

A storage bus simply specifies that the block adjacent to it needs to be counted as a storage device within the ME system.This can be a DSU or any type of chest. Example; hooking up a storage bus to a DSU filled with 64 diamond will appear in your ME access terminal. If you take the diamond out of the DSU, it will also be removed from the system.

As far as the ME interface being part of the recipe; the buses are not so much an upgrade of the ME interface, they are just used in a different way.