Can't hit *anything* in space combat

I saw someone post about this before but it was a long, long time ago.

I installed SEV and was playing 1.00, with everything working normally. I then patched to 1.25, and shortly after installed the Balance Mod and started a game with that. What happened was that when I started getting into space combat, my ships wouldn't hit anything. The enemy ships wouldn't either. I mean, they would empty their guns at point blank range and out of maybe fifty shots fired, one would hit. It was happening everywhere -- at warp points, in empty space, at planets -- with all different kinds of ships and in multiple systems.

I started a new game using 1.25 stock (no balance mod) and had the same problem. Capt. Kwok suggested in might be a bug in which the miss-chance created by storms affects the entire system. I carefully went through the Mod system file and replaced all storms with asteroid belts instead. Created a new (Mod) game sans storms. Same problem.

I guess this is a known bug (?) but I can't believe more people aren't complaining about it, I mean the game is unplayable right now. The only thing that hits are seekers, and what's the point of playing the game when the AI keeps building direct fire weapons? I mean, playing the AI is already kind of like hunting kittens with a bazooka, at least let them have their claws...

Any advice appreciated!