(Answered) Can a unit with dual C3M systems network 6xC3S by itself?

[ProfessorMRB]

I’m looking at the connection diagrams and trying to puzzle these out and it’s unclear if a unit with dual C3Ms is capable of connecting each onboard C3M to 3 independent C3Ss that then become a 7-unit network. It seems clear in figure 2 that a MM unit can connect to an MSS and an SSS branch for 7 units total, but does that second M need to be there for it to work?

In figure 3 it shows an MMM unit, that connects to MSS, SSS, and SSS branches. If the third M wasn’t needed to connect to the MSS branch, then it could just connect the two SSS branches (which is what would happen in battle if the attached MSS branch lost its Master, right?). Basically, I know that lance commanders need a company commander with a designated M-M structure to talk to each other, but I can’t find anything in AS:CE that mentions whether the dual C3M systems onboard a single unit can inherently talk to each other.

[nckestrel]

The best way to look at C3 is to ignore the units, and only consider the C3 systems.  The only unit requirement for C3 is that a single unit cannot belong to two different, unlinked c3 networks.

A unit does not "inherently" link two c3 networks.  The c3 networks themselves need to be linked.
In Figure 2, the center MM unit has one M that links the three slaves in it's lance.  The second M links the two other lance masters, and it's own lance master, to make a company wide network. It actually has to link it's second master to it's first master as one of its three links.  (That's why a company is the maximum size of a c3 network, and not a reinforce company of  four lances. The company commander's once lance c3 master is the fourth member of that company c3 network. The second c3 master is linked to three c3 masters, not two.).  The second M is crucial to make the company wide network.  Otherwise it's merely three separate lance networks.

[ProfessorMRB]

Ok, so then you'd treat the dual unit with no other masters in the network like this:

Primary C3M -> C3S + C3S + C3S

Secondary C3M -> C3S + C3S + C3S

These two chains link individual C3Ms to the maximum number of C3S units, and what you're saying is that these two networks are independently valid but the two lances can't share data because there's nothing linking the primary and secondary C3Ms, correct?

So if I follow you, in order to link these together, I'd need to essentially build configuration 2 where the yellow MM is the dual C3M unit and then leave out the red branch. The extra C3M onboard the dual-unit just connects its own primary C3M to the C3M of a second lance and then they would all share data, right?

[nckestrel]

You got it.  I’ll have to use your explanation next time!