I have my Fubuki equipped with two weapons: her default melee weapon (忍刃鎌“散梅”) and a throwing weapon (小判 - http://www.shinki-net.konami.jp/briis/a ... ?iid=20691). She definitely favors using the throwing weapon, and I would like it to be the other way around. I'd like her to aim to use the melee weapon as much as possible and only resort to the throwing when the enemy is out of range.

How would I go about making this happen?

i suspect you'd need to scold your shinki after battle (i noticed they tend to stick to a strategy when you tell em they did well, and try other things after being scolded afew times until you seem to approve of their actions?) theres an option on battle mode that tells em "try something dif" but i never use it myself.

Equip just one of them. Fubuki has high enough movement to make it work decently, and it'll vastly improve your performance. Being good at two ranges is hard, and being good at three (scythe for 0-100, shuriken for both 100-200 and 200-400) is impossible.

[Report:]
For range control, my personal experience consists three ways (with what both Chalkred and Sword already pointed out).

1) Wear single range weapon and fight mission battle day in and day out... Goes into virtual battle and switch to duel range for testing every now and then to see how she does...

My Angel type and Xmas type did it like that, but mind you, they took almost forever...

2) Because she's Ninja type, have her fight some high mobility long range Shinki (which I can't really think of any mission battle atm...) that she cannot win, scold her when she doesn't fight in close range (increase closeness while learning...) and phrase when she does (drops closeness, but it probably is only once in a while.) until you are happy.

My dog type did it with both range and weapon, but I totally gave up on my Flower type after a while - she just doesn't listen at all...

3) Find a mission battle that limits to the range you wish her to focus only. (eg. no shooting/throwing weapon allow, or weapon weight limit, or range limit - but range limit is usually for mid range.) Then phrase her no matter what the out come is.

My Cat type did it (for using GA4 knocker from mid range), then she stop using skills, then I had to do the skill training, then she went back to close range... Then I gave up -- she doesn't listen well too...

...Hope your Ninja type gives you a less painful experience.
[End of report]

Alright, so regardless of what setup you're using, your shinki eventually develops an "ideal" range. My Eukrante seems to like to hover around 150 meters, so she's constantly in range for her main guns, but sometimes she goes for the swords unfortunately.

But this leads to a better question: Does a shinki become better with certain weapon types as they use them more? I know that each shinki has a weapon affinity, but do they become more proficient with prolonged use of certain weapon types?

EDIT: Ah. I misread the post above. No, a Shinki's attack or accuracy won't "get better" the more you use a certain type of weapon. The weapon specialties only give some sort of bonus like what PenPen said.

[Report:]

Sparkster wrote:Alright, so regardless of what setup you're using, your shinki eventually develops an "ideal" range. My Eukrante seems to like to hover around 150 meters, so she's constantly in range for her main guns, but sometimes she goes for the swords unfortunately.

But this leads to a better question: Does a shinki become better with certain weapon types as they use them more? I know that each shinki has a weapon affinity, but do they become more proficient with prolonged use of certain weapon types?

Well, it's a bit more then "develop an ideal range". I will go through some details below. But here is a quick answer to the questions on the second part:

No. Each type of Shinki comes with weapon that they "genetically good with" (like, +20% attack and/or accuracy on top of that weapon's base attack/accuracy) and "genetically bad with" (vise versa). There hasn't been any report on "develop higher proficiency by using a same kind of weapon over and over". So far, only "range sense" can be developed through going over and over.

===== ===== ===== ===== =====

I haven't be able to come up with a system to categorize how a Shinki picks her weapon, and I am sure there are people who have done that already, but do allow me to give it a shot here:

1) Pick a weapon first: Shinki in this category will pick a favorite weapon, move into range (or don't move at all), perform attack.

Here is the tricky part, each weapon have "pre-attack preparation", which change the position Shinki initialize her attack. This is factored on opponent's mobility at regular movement. (Say a weapon with range 0-120, with opponent that can only move 9 during the pre-attack, a Shinki is likely to initialize attack at 110. But if the opponent is able to move 25, then it will likely be 90.)

2) Pick a range first: Many Shinki do this... Same weapon, same opponent, Howling does GA4 at mid range, MaoChao does 90.

3) Pick a strategy first: This happens especially when you do "Limit Movement" command. Shinki in this category stands on the spot and take out any weapon that she can use.

This one is also tricky... There are Shinki whom "don't like to be hurt". What they do is, trade blow with you at close range, suddenly moved to long range when you start harvester/song-for-you battle mode.

4) Pick a habit first: Even harder to explain, but some Shinki does this... Close range at first three turns, Mid range at fourth turn. (Normally to use skill, however, they developed a habit that even without enough SP, they still moved to mid range if you have a weapon in mid range.)

===== ===== ===== ===== =====

Hope this helps... Somebody should be able to explain this better than I do.
[End of report]