What am I missing with the new space mech combat?

After doing the mech tutorial mission and heading to a gentle star, I am finding that the mech combat with the starter gear is incredibly difficult due to;

• The starter weapon you get is very weak and has a super tiny projectile that doesn't move too fast.
  
• The enemies move around like drugged-up houseflies, and somehow learn to halt all movement in space when you start leading your shots.
• They take around 5 to 6 hits with said pea shooter mech weapon to die, even considering the fact most of them are impossible to hit consistently. Outside of the mech, the end-game personal weapons barely even tickle them.
• You can't run from them. It's just not possible without giving up and beaming to your ship.
• The gentle star enemies do enough damage to punch through violium armor, doing about 20-30 damage with each hit. This caused me to have to retreat after FINALLY getting to a hostile ship, because I was completely surrounded by three shooter enemies, a turret, and about 4 bandits (That weren't anywhere near as tough).
• After doing about 5 or 6 anomalies, space stations, and ships, I still have neither found a schematic for a maybe new not-awful weapon, nor am I anywhere close to actually finishing the first fetch-quest for the penguin guy so he can give me something that maybe isn't awful.

Can someone please tell me what vital piece of information I am missing about this? No one else seems to have as much issue as I am, and it's completely ruining the update for me.

 

You kill them with the drill.

The drill is the real weapon.

The flak cannon is only for taking out banditos once you land and they're in the doorway.

 

You should install the Look-a-Mech mod, so that ALL mech bodies are maximum level. Even the crappy penguin one!

 

If you are drifting,hold space for the brakes.If you keep missing your shots,aim for where enemies might be and you would hit them,most of the enemies in space do not move randomly so it's super easy to predict where they are gonna be.If you want to minimise the damage being dealt towards you,as I've said,predict where are they gonna attack,then move the direction away from the attack unless it's a melee,the use drill as a shield.

 

A lot of it is random when it comes to the schematics. I've got 33 hours clocked on a Human survival character, and I just finished getting every schematic for Basic/Advanced mech parts. Currently working on Experimental/High-Tech schematics. The amount of duplicates and "sleek mech boosters" I got was incredibly infuriating... but hang in there, it gets better.

Side note: I found that dual wielding gatling guns is fun, quick, and fairly efficient when it comes to shredding through enemies. The other was the 3 rocket guided missile (high-tech schematic) dual wielded. Anyone have a favorite pair of weapons they would recommend?