Ships & Modules

Amarr cause Prorator has the most cargo of the BRs and you'll be using those alot more than DSTs.

Gallente. . because it's green.

amarr, because low slots

All the races are good ... in their own way.

Personally I use the Badger for low sec (and because Caldari is the race I've trained).

In the future I may decided to use the Crane, but it is expensive.

May I suggest for trips through low sec you need to:
Add a buffer to your hp (i.e a shield extender or armour plating) to prevent you from insta-popping. Shield/armour resistances and Ancilarry boosters are a favorite, because they do not add weight to the ship or add to your signature radius (enemy locking time).
Add as many warp stabs as possible (in my experience, 4 is enough).
Fit all the rigs with agility modifiers to, reduce your align time.
Add an improved cloaking device. You never know when it may come in handy because not all gate camps are 2/3 people. Sometimes there are 10 or 20 people, and you need to hide until the area is safe to warp away from.

Minmatar, since speed and agility is king and the Mastodon can fit up the best tank for high sec in a practical fitting(yes this means you have to skip the mjd).

If you want to use the DST for low sec/0.0 to, currently gallente and amarr are far cheaper options to combine a high sec alpha prove tank, mwd+cloak, and mjd in one fitting(and by cheap I mean 600M+ compared to hitting 1.5B+ for practical fittings) because the ridiculous fitting restrictions on the mini and caldari hauler(where you are 1-2 pg or cpu short for the interesting fitting options, even with expensive mods to save every bit of cpu and pg and all 5, including shield upgrades and astronautic rigging for warp speed rigs etc.). However this is the point of view of a person that hauls a lot of stuff from A to B nearly every day, I would have no issues spending over a billion on a mastodon if it produces similar good results or even a bit better ones in my case(since I rate speed and agility very high on my haulers), but currently mini and caldari DSTs are just to fitting starved for the interesting fittings, if you are not willing to sacrifice the warp speed to fix it(I am not, and I guess people that use them a lot are in the boat).

Edit: I currently settled on amarr and training amarr Indu up to 5 as we speak, since the Impel produces fairly good results in low sec with as flexible DST on one of my other chars and I couldn't find something comparable in performance for the mastodon. This is with a quite bit of agility and speed imps for the mwd + cloak movement, without that you probably need a interia stabilizer instead of the thermic plating(I even switch it out for low sec for easier mwd+cloak bouncing after a mjd jump, what works very well given that the char got a specific implant set to move a mwd+claok orca to). Overall I am still looking for a bit more pg and cpu on the mastodon to come up with something similar that is not so depended on a specific imp set(and I am willing to pay a quite a bit more for that comfort).

[Impel, Move Me!]
Federation Navy 800mm Reinforced Steel Plates
True Sansha Reactor Control Unit
True Sansha Reactor Control Unit
Centii A-Type Thermic Plating
Centii A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
Centii A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
Damage Control II

Medium Micro Jump Drive
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I

Caldari Navy Cloaking Device
Sisters Core Probe Launcher, Sisters Core Scanner Probe /OFFLINE

Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II

Minmatar, because all of the reasons to use Transport Ships have nothing to do with cargo capacity. Especially now with the Fleet Hangar.

Mastodon has better native resists.

Shield fits rely on invuls which means you have to enable them every time, armour fits work fine with EANM. Also, you really want 2-3 midslots for other modules so shield doesn't make much sense to begin with. They CAN get way more EHP if you focus on it so for high sec afk hauling they work fine but as a whole package not so much.

Impel only has 2 mid slots, Occator has 3. So that's MWD (for MWD/cloak from the gate), MJD to get out of bubbles/trouble and an ECM burst for anyone getting within scram range when you're trying to MJD. Impel and Occator get similar EHP with similar fittings, Occator is faster and it even gets slightly more cargo room.

Occator wins imo.

Occator.

The thermal/kin resists go directly against catalysts/vextors damage types and has enough lows for 5x inertial stabs plus a damage control.

You will die in any of your fittings(that you posted in another thread) as well, so will any hauler in a situation where it doesn't get out any more outside of empire. The reason why it is fitted the way it is, is that it does relay on 3 defence layers instead of just one(and the raw EHP is by far the weakest one since it only allows you to survive in bad situation, not in actively preventing them). The first layer is mwd + cloak, as it is for any hauler that transports stuff of value in empire or low/0.0/WH space. In empire it never got penetrated(even on my Orcas that are far more clumsy) and only failed me twice in low sec(with the with the wreathe that is also using a proper fitting since I used it over the prowler by the ability to move BCs with it), once by spawning to close to a camp and the 2. time by having a thrasher with assisted drones de cloaking me. In both cases your 2. line of defence(speed in that case, mjd for a DST) gives you a good chance to get out of it, or back to the gate. The 3. line is pure EHP that lets you survive a few hits during the mjd spool up or getting out of point range/back to the gate with a mwd. Pure EHP will not save you in any situation outside of empire and travelling empire in my fittings is even saver for me as flying a, for me completely impractical, EHP brick(for the simile reason that you avoid scanning at gates as well). The simple reason why I don't need a massive EHP number is that chances are very low that I will have to relay on the EHP defence layer at all, since I have lots of options to prevent this in the first place. However I have no problems adding quite a bit on it at the cost of 2 A type ANPs, because when I really need it, I rather have as much there as I can get without changing the overall fitting concept of mine.

MJD is very useful in decloak situations or when you spawn to close to relay on mwd on cloak to escape. Another use case is to disengage at undocks with limited hard tackle.

Besides you should double check the CPU on the DSTs, especially with warp speed rigs and mwd, cloak, mjd fittings hardeners are out of the question for any of them. A lot of people think they could overheat and activate the hardeners very fast against a insta lock alpha fitting, from my personal experience, most of the time this is not the case because of server lag, even if you have the modules and the overheating on the key bind and fully in the muscle memory that it is only a reflex to you, rather than a thought process.

Hauling on a more proficient level is not about to resist as much damage as possible when you get shoot, is combining as much efficiency(speed and cargo) while being able to avoiding to get shoot and tackled in the first place, because sufficient effort on the other side it is very easy to lose the ship in that situation, disregarding of the fitted tank.