For the longest time, now, I've been using mining and sparkle ore as my main engine for garnering favor with the giants. I've done some calculations, and with my newly acquired AK7 skill, I believe I may have been a fool for way too long. Please check my math, and through that, my sanity.
At Mining 4, it takes me (accounting for an average of 6 ores returned per pull, and 7 energy spent per pull) 291 energy to acquire 250 ore, which returns 200 Favor (unbuffed).
At AK7, it takes me 4 energy to acquire 8 meat from a pig. Each meat gives me 1 favor. This means it would take me only 100 energy to get 200 Favor. Of course, this energy cost drops dramatically when I just pull meat out of the collector in my back yard. But, to consider an apples-apples relationship, I'm just looking at nibbling on piggies in the wild.
So, in the roughest terms, not considering bonuses garnered from either method of retrieval, nibbling on pigs is about 1/3rd the cost of energy of mining at max skill levels to acquire the same level of favor.
Am I missing something, here?