Alternate Current Mod FAQ

There's no in-game item or block to place — the mod works silently in the background by changing how redstone updates are calculated. If your existing contraptions still behave correctly and large machines lag less, it's active. You can confirm it's loaded from your mod list.

No. Alternate Current optimizes vanilla redstone itself, so any existing wire, repeater, or comparator setup benefits automatically. There are no new blocks or components to craft.

The mod changes update order to be deterministic and non-local, which fixes bug MC-11193 but can expose contraptions that relied on the old, location-dependent update order. Machines built around update-order quirks may need small redesigns.

MC-11193 is the long-standing vanilla bug where redstone update order depends on the direction and position of the circuit, making behavior inconsistent. Alternate Current emits block and shape updates in a deterministic, non-locational order so the same circuit behaves the same way regardless of where it's built.

No — it doesn't alter redstone timing or tick rates, it only reduces redundant power-level checks and block/shape updates. Repeaters, comparators, and pulse lengths behave as in vanilla.

The performance gain scales with complexity, so simple circuits see little to no difference. The benefit shows up when you have many wires or large, complex contraptions running at once.

It's designed to be a drop-in optimization of vanilla redstone, but mods that also rewrite redstone update logic or add their own redstone components can conflict. Test your setup and check the mod's compatibility notes if something misbehaves.

The optimization runs where redstone is calculated, so on a server it should be installed server-side to affect shared contraptions. Clients generally don't need it for the performance benefit, but check the mod's environment requirements for your setup.

Yes — it doesn't add blocks or items, so removing it just reverts redstone to vanilla behavior. Contraptions that depended on the deterministic update order may behave differently once it's gone.

Because the mod makes update order deterministic instead of location-based, circuits that accidentally relied on positional quirks will resolve differently. This is the intended fix for MC-11193, and affected builds usually just need their update order made explicit with repeaters or observers.

It rewrites how redstone power and updates are calculated so wires check their surroundings less often and block/shape updates are emitted in a fixed, non-locational order. The result is less lag from large or complex redstone contraptions, with no new blocks or items to learn.

No, the mod works out of the box and applies its optimized update logic to redstone globally. Just load your world and existing contraptions will run through the new calculation method automatically.

Because update order is now deterministic and non-local instead of depending on position, contraptions that relied on locational update quirks can change behavior. This is the intended fix for MC-11193, so you may need to rebuild the affected circuit rather than expecting the old order back.

Simple builds are usually unaffected, but contraptions that depend on precise update order, such as some piston-based or instant-wire designs, are the most likely to change. Back up your world before loading it with the mod so you can compare behavior.

Compare tick time or MSPT with and without the mod while your largest redstone setup is running, since the benefit scales with the number and complexity of circuits. Small or idle contraptions will show little difference, so test under real load.

No, it reduces the processing cost and redundant updates caused by redstone, not the game's inherent tick-based delay. Components still update on ticks, but the mod cuts the extra work each update generates.

Make sure the lag is actually coming from redstone rather than entities, hoppers, or chunk loading, since the mod only optimizes redstone calculation and updates. If redstone is the source, reducing redundant wiring and splitting the setup into smaller independent sections still helps.

Yes, it minimizes how often a wire rechecks its surroundings to determine power, which is one of the main sources of redundant work in large networks. The wire still reaches the correct power level, it just does so with fewer checks.

It is a server-side logic change, so clients do not need it for the optimization to apply, but everyone should expect the same deterministic update order. Test on a copy of the world first, since existing contraptions may behave differently for all players.