Tick Speed Explained, Random vs Scheduled Ticks

What Is a Tick?

Minecraft servers run a game loop that executes 20 times per second. Each iteration is called a tick. Within each tick, the server processes player input, entity movement, block updates, weather, and more. When we talk about tick speed minecraft explained in detail, we need to distinguish between the main game tick, random ticks, and scheduled ticks.

The Main Game Loop

The server targets 20 ticks per second (TPS), meaning each tick has a budget of 50 milliseconds. If all processing finishes in 30 ms, the server sleeps for 20 ms. If processing takes 60 ms, TPS drops to around 16.7 and the game feels sluggish. Everything we do to optimize a server is about keeping each tick under that 50 ms budget.

Random Ticks

Random tick speed controls how often blocks in loaded chunks receive random updates. These updates drive crop growth, leaf decay, fire spread, mushroom spreading, and other gradual block changes. The default randomTickSpeed gamerule is 3, meaning each chunk section picks 3 random blocks per tick to update.

Changing this value scales linearly. Setting it to 6 doubles the rate of crop growth and fire spread. Setting it to 1 slows everything down to one-third of normal speed. Setting it to 0 freezes all random-tick-driven mechanics.

/gamerule randomTickSpeed 3

For tick speed minecraft explained in a performance context: higher random tick speeds cause more block updates per tick, which costs CPU. On large servers we sometimes lower this to 2 or even 1 to save processing time, accepting slower crop growth as the trade-off.

Scheduled Ticks

Scheduled ticks are deterministic. When a block of water flows, a piece of redstone activates, or a falling block needs to update, the server schedules a tick for a specific future game tick. These are not random and cannot be controlled with the randomTickSpeed gamerule.

Scheduled tick processing includes:

• Redstone signal propagation
• Water and lava flow
• Falling sand and gravel
• Repeater and comparator delays
• Scheduled block updates from plugins

Heavy redstone builds and large water flows generate thousands of scheduled ticks. This is why piston machines and water-based mob grinders can tank TPS. The server must process every scheduled tick in order, and they cannot be skipped without breaking game mechanics.

How Paper Handles Ticks

Paper optimizes both tick types. For random ticks, Paper ensures they only fire in chunks within the simulation distance, not the full view distance. For scheduled ticks, Paper batches certain operations for efficiency. Review Paper's configuration for settings like optimize-explosions and use-faster-eigencraft-redstone that reduce scheduled tick load.

The randomTickSpeed Myth

A common misconception is that randomTickSpeed controls how fast the server ticks overall. It does not. It only controls how many random block updates happen per chunk section per tick. Your server still runs at 20 TPS regardless of this value (assuming it can keep up). Tick speed minecraft explained accurately means understanding that randomTickSpeed is a subset of the work done each tick, not the tick rate itself.

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Performance Recommendations

• Keep randomTickSpeed at 3 unless you have a specific reason to change it.
• If crop growth matters less than TPS, lower it to 1 or 2.
• Limit large redstone machines to reduce scheduled tick load.
• Use Spark to check if block ticking appears in your top tick consumers.
• For full tick speed minecraft explained diagnostics, compare the "Block Ticking" and "Scheduled Ticks" sections of a Spark report.