Talk:Ore Illuminator/@comment-28075122-20191110042231

the way this upgrader (and its evolved form) detect if your ore has been upgraded basically checks every second to see if the ore's upgrade count is different than it's upgrade count when initially starting its education. this means there are 3 ways to upgrade ores during the education without them getting destroyed:

1. use upgraders that don't actually add any upgrade count (such as gloom refiner)

2. use an upgrader that happens to set upgrade count to the same number as the ore already has (such as winterheart on negative value ores setting upgrade count to 20)

3. quickly use an upgrader that gives positive upgrade count and another one that gives negative upgrade count (such as alien relic and any upgrader that gives 1 upgrade count). this method is a bit unsafe since you need to time the upgrades properly.