only if you plan on doing things? I have no idea about the command chat here, but if my instincts telll me anything of this game, you might have alot of unwanted chatter on there.
You can mute anybody, at anytime, when they are talking to you over any channel, by pressing Numpad 'Enter'. Try and be careful not to multi-mute on accident Half of Matherson NC Command chat was muted long ago. Those proxy radio blaring guys? Insta-mute.
It pretty much isn't worth it. I've been exposed to it when I ran the odd TE squad off-Ops back in the day and, while I haven't been exposed to it recently, from what I've heard it's only gotten worse since then, and it wasn't that amazing even when we were all actually trying to make sh*t work. At most you get it for when you're running platoons and you want to use Orders chat to notify everyone else of X or Y important thing(Say a base is getting pushed and needs more people). Other than that? Meh.
As others have said it really depends on what you're doing. If you're just running a squad, or maybe a little above, then I would say it's not really necessary. If you're going to be running a platoon I would suggest that you get it, as using a platoon worth of players and not knowing where the rest of your empires leaders are asking for help can be a little detrimental. Having it lets you be an asset and apply your force in areas that are needed if people are asking for help there. That being said I won't tell you it won't drive you crazy a lot of the time. Some players will just talk with each other over it, sometimes people have to announce every last thing they're doing over it as well. But again, if you're directing larger forces of players it is good to know what the other leaders of your empire are up to. And here's a nice example of one of those times you just mute it and ignore it. It's definitely improved for NC on Emerald, but that's an example of the extreme end of how bad it can be. On the other hand I witnessed it used to undo the VS's lock of Esamir after an alert win not but 1 minute after the VS won, so that's the other end of the spectrum, where your empire comes together and uses command chat to really pull off something great.
You can mute the whole command channel. I keep it muted myself and only very rarely turn the volume back up if I see names of people I know talking in it or if I want to use it. 200 certs for the command channel would have been a waste of certs for me except it also included both /leader (which by nature is much less annoying then the chat channel) and /order. /order is an especially powerful tool, I would say if used properly it is the single most powerful tool in my kit and I have won at least one close alert thanks to it. Of course it only works when you are squad/platoon lead. If you lead often you can make use of it often, if you are never squad lead it will be a waste of certs.
I swear, I've been playing this game since OB, and I never knew that. Thank you much, good sir. Although, I will say I highly enjoyed an infiltrator that was blasting some heavy techno music earlier today. I was jamming out in mah max. .-.
The map is fairly powerful but I get the impression most don't know how to read it. But the channel does have it's own volume and you can mute anyone so certing it isn't that bad. I can think of a few ways to improve it: If the same person is muted by lots of people then SOE should look into that person automatically. Limit the transmit time and time between transmits similar to /orders. This would tend to make people use it for useful stuff. Or make it cost implant energy Or certs Anyone that burps into it is immediately thrown under the nearest tank.
