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IonAmbient

The overall light level in force while an ion storm is running, where 1 is full daylight.

Scenario lighting

Specification — Scenario lighting
Applies to
scenarios
File
map file
Section
[Lighting]
Value
floating point
When omitted
Context-dependentThe value this scenario's Ambient key sets in the same section, read immediately before it. With neither key present that is 1, full daylight.
map file
[Lighting]
Ambient=1
IonAmbient=.5

A storm does not apply this level outright: it becomes the target of the ambient fade, which walks the map down to it over several steps and back up to Ambient when the storm ends. The palette tint changes at once, so a map with a dark ion level shows its ion colors well before it shows its ion darkness.

Random map generation

Specification — Random map generation
Applies to
random map generation
File
map file
Section
[Lighting]
Value
floating point
When omitted
Context-dependentThe ambient level generation has just set from the seed's time of day.

Random map generation reads this entry from the hard-coded file ION.INI, and only when the seed carries UseIonStorms=yes. It replaces the value the generated map was built with, so that file is where a mod sets the storm lighting every generated map will use.