the fluid formation plane refuses to place fluids
Describe the bug
the fluid formation plane won't place fluids in the world when fluids are being imported

To Reproduce
place a fluid formation plane, me controller, me drive with a fluid storage cell in it, and a tank with a fluid import bus connected to it.
make sure the plane is set up to place that fluid
add fluid to the tank
watch as the fluid goes straight into the storage cell while the fluid formation plane does nothing

Expected behavior
fluid formation plane places the fluid in the world

Additional context
the fluid formation plane is set to the highest priority and the me drive is set to the lowest priority. the fluid formation plane functions fine when a fluid annihilation plane is used to get the fluid instead of importing it from a tank

Environment
playing all of fabric 3
screenshot of setup: https://imgur.com/vKEOZnN

• Environment:

this is how the normal formation planes are working so i suggested it works like designed!

This isn't true. The behavior of a normal formation plane in block placement mode is consistent. An item inserted into the network will be "stored" according to priority by the formation plane, regardless of whether it was imported by a bus, piped into an interface or inserted via terminal. I've recreated OPs setup both with an item and a fluid variant:

Same setup as the OP (fluid import bus, fluid formation plane and fluid storage disk in ME drive)

• Fluid inserted by a player via fluid terminal is placed by the fluid formation plane, according to priority.
• Fluid imported by the fluid import bus is first stored in the storage disk, disregarding the priorities.

Same setup as the OP but disk removed from ME drive

• Fluid imported by the fluid import bus is placed by the fluid formation plane, if it is the only valid destination. Which means the path from fluid import bus to fluid formation plane works in principle.

Same setup as the OP but with normal item equivalents

• Item inserted by a player via terminal is placed by the formation plane, according to priority.
• Item imported by the import bus is placed by the formation plane, according to priority.

In conclusion, it seems only the fluid formation plane is inconsistent regarding the storage priority.

oh well yeah now after re-reading it again i noticed i have misread the additional context ... sorry

the fluid formation plane is set to the highest priority and the me drive is set to the lowest priority. the fluid formation plane functions fine when a fluid annihilation plane is used to get the fluid instead of importing it from a tank

i did misread that as WHEN the planes are setup like described they work fine

again my fault sorry

can we have a forced crash (F3+C while ingame) or full version numbers please for a complete report?

this is how the normal formation planes are working so i suggested it works like designed!

That's a consequence of the formation plane acting like a storage cell, and the ME network preferring cells that already have the fluid even if they have a lower priority. We can probably change this for formation planes specifically, not sure.

Pretty sure this was fixed for 1.17 in #5541. Please reopen if the issue persists with 1.17.