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Let's talk about Redstone! [Java Snapshot 24w33a]

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We are trying out some new redstone features in this snapshot. We know redstone changes are scary, so please note that the experimental features behind this toggle are not aimed at any future release at this time. Instead, this is a place for us to try out changes and gather your valuable feedback. We are excited to hear what you think about these changes.

In this update we have improved the impact of redstone wire and changed the update order around wires.

  • Redstone wire now only triggers block updates on blocks that may receive power from the wire
  • Before a line of wire causes block updates, the new signal strength of all connected wires is set

New update order around redstone wires:

  • When a line of wire turns on or off, the wires closer to the power source will cause block updates first
  • When two wires have the same distance to the power source, which of them causes updates first is picked at random
  • The order in which blocks around the wire update is based on the direction the wire received an update from
  • Currently, the order is: back, front, left, right, down, up where left and right may be swapped depending on the random choice made by the line of wire
  • When the updates are further distributed through solid blocks, the same order is applied there

How to try it out:

To enable the redstone changes, go to the Experiments menu and select "Redstone Experiments" when creating a new world.

You can find all previous changelogs in the Knowledge Base in Snapshot Information and Changelogs.

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  • 32
    Registered User commented
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    The randomness isn't great, but the rest of the changes are amazing!

  • 75
    Registered User commented
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    what do you guys even mean?

    the changes to Redstone dust this time are devastating for us players

    1.  we need you to revert the Redstone dust update range back to the previous version. you are destroying a game mode-Technical Minecraft.

    2.   make sure the Redstone dust update order strictly follows the set sequence. setting a new update order based on the signal source makes it inconvenient for us to operate. especially the first point—this issue is too serious

  • 89
    Registered User commented
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    I get that you are trying to make redstone less laggy, but this breaks an ENORMOUS number of existing contraptions. In addition, making certain setups random is a terrible idea. It is much better to have something that is weird but consistent (it'll either always work or always break, depending on location/direction) than something that is inconsistent (randomness!).

  • 58
    Registered User commented
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    With these changes, you have single-handedly killed at minimum 90% of redstone-based machines that even touch redstone dust... Thanks a lot, Mojang, you've done it again!

  • 67
    Registered User commented
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    Please don't add a randomness into redstone, its literally will be ruin some possible systems. I think mechanisms must work properly and everytime the same, not with the chance

  • 65
    Registered User commented
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    Changing the dust update range breaks a MASSIVE amount of contraptions. Combined with the minecart changes, this update will be devastating for the 0 tick community.

  • 54
    Registered User commented
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    Revert it. This makes redstone broken.

  • 26
    Registered User commented
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    This actually breaks barely any contraptions in my opinion, anything based on redstone order was already inconsistent when copied/rotated/moved/flipped, this will only break "survival wiring" where something was built in place, and tweaked until it works, this is a vast minority of all redstone in my experience. If you're designing something in creative to be copied and distributed, then you design it without dust, or with very limited dust, and you certainly don't rely on dust update order, this simply allows you to do something safely, that was previously considered "bad practice", which I am all for. That being said there are parts of these changes which are currently bad, such as only sending updates through solid blocks, but that is not the bulk of the changes, and as far as I can tell, not the intention, overall I think this change doesn't break nearly as much as people think it does, I do invite you to try and find good examples of things this breaks, which weren't already broken if you copied them to a new location

  • 45
    Registered User commented
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    the changes to Redstone are devastating

  • 46
    Registered User commented
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    Please revert this!

  • 21
    Registered User commented
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    Performance improvements are a really good thing. The problem is that due to:

    • Redstone wire now only triggers block updates on blocks that may receive power from the wire

    pistons and other through quasi connectivity powerable components are not updated properly in certain situations where they were before. Mainly when dust is placed on transparent blocks where the blocks below used to receive updates but no longer are. Dust on a transparent block pointing (indiectly) into a piston below (ont the same height as the transparent block) will also not update said piston.
    While I think that randomness in certain situation is probably bettter than location hash based update order because it doesn't 'hide' inconsistencies, I think that most would prefer a fully deterministic update order. It might break contraptions when rotating them (this is already the case for some) but has a predictable outcome based on the relative position to the power source.

  • 30
    Registered User commented
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    This change just detracts form the gameplay and breaks all contraptions that involve dust that i know of, and i know a lot

  • 23
    Registered User commented
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    Lots to unpack here

    • Lag optimised redstone dust is a good idea in theory but this implementation leaves much to be desired. Myself and a lot of the community would prefer if this change was made similar to Alternate Current's implementation of updates.
    • The power level before sending updates is good I guess
    • Distance based update order is a good long term change
    • HOWEVER making the redstone random at the same range is TERRIBLE. That's a major factor of what we dislike about bedrock edition redstone, the fact that it's random. Even if the redstone at the same distance was directional that would be ok but DO NOT make redstone update order random

    Also PS please revert the redstone torch texture change, it looks terrible, the original is a classic and no one complained

  • 64
    Registered User commented
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    Fixing dust location issues and reducing lag would help the TMC community, but the implementation is inconsistent with other redstone components.

    • Inconsistency: The change where "Redstone wire now only triggers block updates on blocks that may receive power" aims to reduce lag but creates inconsistencies. Other components like observers, repeaters… send block updates regardless of surrounding blocks. Restricting this to dust alone will confuse players. Consistency is crucial, and this change disrupts that.
    • Non-Deterministic Order: Randomizing the order when "there is not enough context to fully determine the order" adds more inconsistency. Components like rails behave directionally deterministically. Dust deviates from this, becoming unpredictable (way more than before for some scenarios). This inconsistency is problematic for players designing complex contraptions. For consistency, dust should follow the same deterministic block update order as other components.
    • Misunderstanding the Root Cause of Lag: While optimizing code helps, the issue isn’t just block updates but how dust lines behave when depowered at high signal strengths. When a 15-long dust line powered by SS15 loses power, it triggers a cascading search, causing multiple ticks (up to 7) for each wire. The problem lies in this repeated ticking, not just block updates. In fact, dust sends only 8 more updates than inclined rails and the same as redstone torches.
  • 13
    Registered User commented
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    The changes to redstone update range are terrible. Most redstone builds that use dust rely on redstone dust sending out block updates to update components such as budded pistons. This is a unnecessary breaking change that breaks virtually every build that used pistons, doors, farms, storage... Breaking changes are bad and if this change were to stay in the game, most of the redstone community would quit.

    There is another better way to prevent excessive block updates without breaking update range and most builds. Because the new redstone dust update order already checks where it got power from for update order, you can use this existing check to not schedule duplicate updates already covered by previous redstone dust. This will result in the first redstone dust giving out 42 block updates while all subsequent dust, regardless of the dust setup, will need 13 block updates to cover the same update range as old behavior.

  • 24
    Registered User commented
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    Something just screams: "Revert change" here.

  • 8
    Registered User commented
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    Redstone dust not updating pistons is a big loss and should be reverted to keep compatibility, at least partially.

    I think a good middle ground would be making it update all adjacent blocks, and also blocks 1 block away, if the dust would be able to power them, if there was a block for the signal to go through (i.e. even if there isn't a block it would cause an update).

    I'm a fan of the new update order. it will break some current machines but it could be worth it in the long run, making redstone simpler to comprehend and predict.

    Using randomness to resolve some situations is unfortunate but getting rid of locationality is again a good thing.

  • 10
    Registered User commented
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    Please revert this. I understand that you are trying to make redstone less laggy and more understandable for the average player, but these changes will destroy almost everything we have made in technical minecraft. This is a truly monumentous change and will break everything. You are deleting all of the builds, contraptions, many farms, and everything else we have created in the past years. You are practically deleting an entire game mode.

    The redstone update change absolutely needs to be reverted. The randomness based on input source is pretty bad too, but I ask that you absolutely need to revert the redstone update range.

  • 6
    Registered User commented
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    In my opinion, directionality is much preferred over locationality and locationality is preferred over randomness. If an arbitrary decision has to be made, I would significantly prefer it was made based on global direction rather than randomness.

    If the goal of these changes is to make redstone more consistent, I would suggest just making the block update iterator fixed (instead of based on hashset iteration order), and changing almost nothing else.

  • 11
    Registered User commented
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    Please revert this. I understand that you are trying to make redstone less laggy and more understandable for the average player, but these changes will destroy almost everything we have made in technical minecraft. This is a truly monumentous change and will break everything. You are deleting all of the builds, contraptions, many farms, and everything else we have created in the past years. You are practically deleting an entire game mode.

  • 13
    Registered User commented
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    The randomness isn't great but the rest of the changes are truly awful.

  • 5
    Registered User commented
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    My opinion on all of these changes:

    "Redstone wire now only triggers block updates on blocks that may receive power from the wire":
    There are definitely advantages to the way it works today, but this change also makes new things possible and should help reduce redstone dust lag. It would definitely take some time to get used to, but I could be in favor of this change. Overall I'm neutral on this change.

    "Before a line of wire causes block updates, the new signal strength of all connected wires is set":
    This will make redstone dust depowering order actually possible to solve and rely on, and I can't think of any existing contraptions that would break because of this change being implemented. It should also significantly decrease the amount of block updates that are processed when a redstone line depowers, reducing overall lag. Very good change, I definitely think this one should stay regardless of whether the other features stay.

    "When a line of wire turns on or off, the wires closer to the power source will cause block updates first":
    Similar to the first change, I see advantages and disadvantages. I would prefer more of a depth-first order rather than breadth-first but I could ultimately settle for breadth-first. I'm between Neutral and negative on this change.

    "When two wires have the same distance to the power source, which of them causes updates first is picked at random":
    Absolutely not. Please just pick a direction and stick with it. This change should NEVER make it out of snapshots. Lack of randomness is one of the major reasons I play java instead of bedrock.

    "The order in which blocks around the wire update is based on the direction the wire received an update from":
    This is acceptable. I still prefer the order to be directional instead of this, but I can understand that removing this aspect of directionality can be better for the ecosystem. Other redstone components are still directional though, so I think many larger contraptions would still be directional even if this change was instituted.

    "Currently, the order is: back, front, left, right, down, up where left and right may be swapped depending on the random choice made by the line of wire":
    Get rid of the random choice of course, but otherwise this order is fine. Although I would prefer up/down between back/front and left/right because sometimes you just need vertical block updates before or after the horizontal block updates.

    "When the updates are further distributed through solid blocks, the same order is applied there":
    This is fine, but similar to my thoughts on the first change, I'm not convinced further block updates should be restricted to only going through solid blocks.

  • 15
    Registered User commented
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    Coming from someone who has been playing Minecraft since it came out and have been a part of the technical community since its infancy. This change would singlehandedly break fundamental building blocks of the Redstone community. Quasi connectivity, anything with precise timings would cease to work and it would completely destroy 90% of the Redstone creations ever made up until this point. Adding randomness to Redstone dust at all but ruin anything using Redstone dust. The change of Redstone only causing block updates to blocks that can receive power would massacre anything that utilizes block updates in any capacity. Redstone may have its flaws and be somewhat "janky" but it is well known how those quirks work and how to use them they might function oddly but they are consistent in the way that they work. Please don't destroy the technical Minecraft community by even thinking about changes like this years and years of progress and research and your community creating things would be ruined and destroyed.

  • 5
    Registered User commented
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    minecraft: I'm struggling to bake a cake fast
    mojang: ok, how about cutting out steps 3, 5, and 10
    minecraft: ok! I can bake a cake 6x faster now, thanks!

    the cake:

  • 17
    Registered User commented
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    Hi, Mojang. I understand why this may seem like a good change for the casual player by making redstone easier to understand and for small simple contraptions its not really a big deal, but once you start to scale your builds it really does matter.
     
    First, debugging a 2000+ block build is painful enough I want to know that the reason it doesn't work is the same each time. Redstone currently is a boolean logic based system, it is Turing complete and as such deterministic, What you have suggested doesn't live up to this standard
     
    Second, it destroys most methods of compaction that allow redstone and complicated builds to be more survival friendly
     
    Third, although the actual redstone/ TMC community is small(~5% of players) its impact is not. My estimate would be that >90% of players have used our stuff in their worlds. TMC is the heart of the survival community, if these changes are pushed through as they currently are most will refuse to update effectively ending efficient redstone and farm designs for the most modern version
     
    Fourth, after the copper bulb incident and years of little to no features it feels like a slap in the face to the whole community so although our criticism should be constructive it feels hard to blame those that are angry
     
    That being said, I have hope for the experiment in the future but the chase for parity is currently going the wrong way in my opinion. Bedrock redstoners have long complained about randomness and I don't want my hobby having the same fate
     
     
  • 7
    Registered User commented
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    Im new to redstone but after testing some basic contraption (a 4x4 piston door, one 0 tick piston extender, 3 tnt duper and a flying machine just in case) everything seemed to work properly. I think this update order change isn't that bad. It might breaks some hight level redstone but wont really change the casual player experience (even if he does quite a lot redstone) apart from revolutionizing item transportation with chained dropper and reducing lag. In my oppinion the update order change of this snapshot is a big yes, it would still be better without the randomness and with redstone dust updating other blocs.

  • 11
    Registered User commented
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    I've just gone and tested these new redstone changes. The first one that has been changed - dust not providing block updates to blocks unless the block is powered by the dust - would break just about every single thing I've ever made with Redstone.

    I have stuff that dates back to the 1.5 update that would be broken by this change. Please, for the love of god, do not implement this change. Pretty much every single Redstone contraption that even touches dust uses these mechanics. This is maybe the most horrendous change to Redstone imaginable.

    If your goal was to absolutely screw over every single person who's put time into playing Minecraft in a technical aspect - yep, you've done it, great job. This would be a really really great way to absolutely kill off the community.

    On implementing randomness into redstone: I get why you're trying to do it, from an optimisation standpoint, from a simplicity standpoint, but no thanks again. Having to spend time learning how redstone update order works is genuinely much more preferable than having an aspect of randomness in Redstone.

  • 29
    Registered User commented
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    I think this is a horrible change, you've said so many times you wouldn't drastically change either redstone systems but here we are. If these changes roll out in a full version I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of redstoners quit

  • 9
    Registered User commented
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    Please revert the Redstone dust update range back to the previous version. Moreover, please revert the change on mine cart since the update breaks a massive number of machines based on it and has negative impact on storage tech.

  • 13
    Registered User commented
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    I don't think you think about the consequences of large scale changes to complex mechanics. For example, those using the update order mechanic from Minecraft 1.21.1 and earlier.

    Advanced redstone builds that require this mechanic to function are severely affected, if not broken. And all advanced redstone builds are the product of HOURS of effort that players put into pouring their creativity into Minecraft. I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish.

    This comment may be very aggressive but I don't want the spawnchunks and raid farms thing to happen again.

    Thankyou for atention.