I need to donate stuff for favor to get up to 1500 favor (whatever that quest is called- on my iPod so I can't really check). What is best easiest way to do this? The only thing I can really think of is mining but is there a better way?
The reason why they say mining is good is because of the gems, but the animal and plant route will give you musicblocks, so it's up to your gaming style which to follow.
You can donate nearly everything. There are some exceptions such as containers. Roughly speaking the donation value of items is proportional to their monetary value in currents.
According to my calculations growing spinach is the most lucrative crop in terms of the use of your time provided you're prepared to see it through each stage from planting to harvesting. If you haven't got a house yet then you can use one of the public growing plots but beware of other players harvesting the crops, probably quite innocently if they're newbies.
Squeezing chickens often produces not only grain which is of very low value, but also more valuable gifts such as music blocks which can be donated.
First of all buy Extremely Hallowed Shrine Powder from the Auction House. It will make your next donation count for triple value. Expect to pay 2000c or less for 5 doses. Make sure it says 5/5 in the auction listing, some people are scamming by selling 1/5 doses at a price just lower than the 5/5 ones so it looks like a good deal but is most assuredly NOT.
If you get EHSP for 2000c, then you can expect it to be saving you resources if you use it on any donation worth 250c street price or higher (that's a donation that will net 25 favor or more). The higher above 250c you donate, the better value you are getting, but at least you are breaking even at 250c. Don't use a dose of EHSP if you are donating a single grain.
Now amass a large amount of any single resource that your skills and/or playstyle can allow for. I use meat/milk a lot because that lets me roam the world which is fun. If you have high gardening then harvesting eggs might be worthwhile. Mining is definitely a good angle if you have the higher skills and patience, and inventory slots free for all the gems. If you mine, just mine sparkly, not all rocks. You want to have a large quantity of 1 item, rather than several items that in total add up to a large quantity. This is because a dose of EHSP only works on a single donation which can be any quantity of a single item.
Then do the math to make sure you don't over donate when getting the emblems leading up to 1600 max favor (this will allow for a 1500 donation). You want to donate just enough favor to max out the emblem. Or just enough to reach the amount you need. You divide the remaining favor by 3 since you will be using EHSP and then donate that amount (after using EHSP).
Which substance you collect to donate is pretty much irrelevant. Lots of people will say mining is best, but I think playstyle/skillset should dictate what route you choose.
Edit: my message boils down to "what Issek said". We were writing at the same time.
Buy an Extremely Hallowed Shrine Powder or two at auction, making sure to buy ones with full charges. (They're usually less expensive than the materials to make them, and always less expensive than making any significant donation without.)
Assemble 5040 currants worth, total, of a small number of things that sell at auction for less than their face value. You can do that by mining, crop raising, cooking, animal harvesting, saving up common music blocks. Or you can do it by auctioning off things that sell well like tree products, some herbs, fireflies, guano, fancy tools, rarer music blocks, and using the currants to buy up low-priced things in bulk. It's become kind of a standard response to people who want resources to say "Mine", but really whichever activities you like and have the skills for will do fine. This character gets a lot of resources from herbs, my other character (who's never met Granny Weatherwax) mostly does animals and trees.
Item Value: 10
EHSP Multiplier: 3
Favor per Meat = (10/10)*3 = 3
To get an emblem: 1200/Favor/Meat = 1200/3 = 400
To get max favor without an emblem = (400-1) * 3 = 1197
Sparkly = 8
Beryl = 6
If I have money, but not many resources to donate, I just buy a mass of 1 item, for example bubble tuners = 150.
So it would be 1200/(150/10)*3 = 26.666666 bubble tuners to max donation. ( Just use 26 because I'm not after emblems, use 27 if you are)
EHSP + 2 Crystalmalizing chambers = 1500 favour exactly. There are other item combinations that will get you there, but this would be a one shot zero favour to emblem go at things. Low stack items and/or low value stacks take up too much space in inv when you're looking at donating to multiple shrines for favour and/or speeding up learning.
I've found that cooking greatly increases favor reward versus donating raw ingredients, if you're up for the energy drain involved.For example, the ingredients to make one Awesome Stew cost a total of 102 currants, which means 10.2 favor. But one Awesome Stew is worth 200 currents, or 20 favor. So if you have the means to make food yourself, it's a worthwhile endeavor. Combined with EHSP, it can be very powerful indeed.Also, you are not limited to donating one stack at a time when making a donation, so if you have the room for three stacks of Awesome Stew, you can get to 1500 favor with 25 stews (two full stacks plus one). It's costly energy wise and bag space wise but definitely currant efficient.
When I'm hard up for donation items, I go to the ancestral lands (Baqala, Zhambu, Choru, & Xalanga). There are "traps" there that spit out various items when you walk past them. Sometimes, the items are crap (such as paper), but I've gotten walloping big diamonds, purple sno cones, showy sapphires, and luminous moonstones many times.
Lately, I've been mass producing different ingots both for the achievements and donating. Molybdenum, though very element-intensive to make, are 10 favour each. With EHSP, that turns to 30. I can easily fill up a shrine with only 50 or so bars, after dumping all my excess music blocks into it. I've currently stockpiled probably 300+ molybdenum ingots over a couple days, so I should be good for donating for a while. lol Copper ingots are a little easier to support in elements (and are still 7 favour each), since dullite is a lot easier to find than sparkly most of the time and red elements are easy to top up with a few beryl chunks.
It definitely uses a lot of energy to make all the ingots, but I just stockpile on meats and eat piles to top up. I can also just go and sell any extra I have for a good chunk of currants.