According to this link, https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/4253/backwards-compatibility-in-sql-server-data-tools-for-integration-services/ the newest version of SQL Server Data Tools - "SSDT for Visual Studio 15" (16.5) is compatible with SQL 2016 AND older versions as well. In previous incarnations of the software, whether it was called "SQL Server Data Tools", "SQL Server Data Tools - Business Intelligence", or "Business Intelligence Development Studio", we always seemed to run into version incompatibility issues when deploying.
If I'm reading this correctly, we could uninstall all older versions of the tools, and just install SSDT 16.5 for development of SSIS packages for SQL 2012 and newer. Due to many issues I've seen in past versions of the tools, I am hesitant to develop new projects in this.
Is anyone successfully deploying SSIS packages to SQL 2016 AND older versions with SSDT 16.5? Obviously, tasks that are only supported in newer versions wouldn't work in older versions.