what confuses me is how the ion storm time effects your lighting. I mean I can understand if the Ion Storm lighting itself is way too dark...but the length of the ion storm should have no effect on how dark it is just how long the ion storm lasts.
With that in mind go to your lighting settings and make sure the Ion storm lighting values has an ambient above 0.40 and the color values have something in them instead of 0.0000.
Oh also you didn't do anything with the Ground Lighting did you? (Highly doubt this as it's hidden within the map itself and not accessible in finalsun.)
As for your Radar Trigger...i want you to test something. Instead of having the event parameters say Neutral type in -1 in the parameter values box.
As for Text triggers. I believe they don't work because you need an updated FSData.ini or you need to modify it as in the original they left out a certain value in the actions format in that file which prevents the Text trigger from properly setting up.
I believe this is the updated FSData.ini file
Here.
If you replace your old FSData.ini file with that and then do the text trigger it should work then. If not I should be able to lead you through on how to get them to work another way.