Why is it so annoying to find better weapons?

Was finally able to replace my scythe on my hylotle but only because there was a 2h sword pattern in a avian village I was lucky to find on a planet I visited but it's really just a side grade, 3 less damage and slower but it's a damn sword so it gives protection from above.

Even with the armor pen 5 it really isn't a good weapon if anything near or above level 9 is around so, how the hell do we go about finding USEFUL weapons? So far all and any chests I've found have had crap, on said planet with the village there were no super enemies to kill for some kind of drop. Any weapon I find in a chest is like 1 or 2 armor pen so, I know those aren't going to do jack when my armor pen 5 isn't really doing spectacularly.

 

You must find a planet with a gun vendor. There's a thread around here with coordinates.

 

What if I don't want to use guns?

 

Armor penetration means "maximum level of monsters you should use this weapon against".

Find any weapon with 9-10 and it will be much better regardless of damage.

 

I found tons and tons of weapons when I went to one of those USCA(or something..) Prisons. There were plenty of bad guys and I got like 15 weapons, and some were simply amazing!

 

And thus lies the crux of the issue, if I could find a weapon that'd be great.

 

Ya, fighting the first boss with a arm-pen 5 wep really sucked. I gave up trying to find one with higher.