SpigotMC/Spigot — pull request #217 by aikar (2014-08-20 23:28:01+00:00)
Title: Limit TNT Detonations per tick

This gives a per-world control on how much TNT will be processed per-tick,
preventing a massive TNT detonation from lagging out the server.

Before: 2300~ TNT processing (3000 ball): http://aikar.co/timings.php?url=8101611
After: 2400~ TNT processing (3000 ball): http://aikar.co/timings.php?url=8101593

Note average goes DOWN over time as the TNT detonates and gets removed from the world, so I don't even know how bad the unpatched one was at the 3 second mark, I was lagging too hard to issue the timings.

patched process helped client lag a ton too (as it rate limits the packet sending too).

This does cause behavioral changes to TNT detonation, but its not like TNT detonation was "consistent" to begin with...