My guess is that the two clients are the same with some features disabled.....and stop calling me Shirley.
The problem isn't keeping the base-game updated.
The problem is ensuring that owners of the base-game don't accidentally get screwed over.
We've already had minor examples of this where, for example, there's been CGs that are supposed to be open to everybody but which require things that can only be found on planet surfaces and (unless I'm mistaken) non-Horizons players can still meet up with Thargoids but they don't have the same access to AX anf Guardian tech that Horizons players do.
And, of course, at it's most basic, a base-game player (with no access to engineers) can still get attacked by fully engineered opponents.
The simplest solution is to ensure that all expansions are "exclusive" (in the sense that they're all completely separate from each other) but that means each expansion is likely to be rather narrow in scope, which is a shame because it means FDev will never be able to create an iteration of the game that showcases all the expanded content.
For example, we already have Horizons.
Let's say FDev (by some miracle) manage to add atmo' landings and space-legs.
If they want to avoid forcing players to purchase all 3 expansions, they won't be able to create any space-legs content that takes place on planet surfaces and they won't be able to create any surface content that requires space-legs.
That means, you're never going to get the "full experience" of dropping out of orbit, flying to a city and getting out of your spaceship and walking around to complete some objective.
Course, with 3 or 4 years left before FDev can ED, they're probably just thinking in terms of 3 or 4 minor paid-expansions and that's your lot.
They could just stop selling the base game without Horiizons, and offer a free (or cheap) upgrade to existing base players, then stop upgrading the base game.
That would probably please the most.
However, what of 32bit players who for whatever reason can't upgrade? Do we abandon them?
What next? Abandon non-VR players?
My guess is that the two clients are the same with some features disabled.....and stop calling me Shirley.
Unless I missed an announcement it's not been retained and was put to rest ages ago: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/370612-Removal-of-Win32-support-for-Elite-DangerousPossibly, but retaining 32 bit exe makes me think otherwise.
It's silly to compare non-VR gamers to folks who don't run a 64 bit OS.
Possibly, but retaining 32 bit exe makes me think otherwise.
the reason Mac support is being dropped is because the 32-bit version goes away with Ch4
Realistically players not bought into horizons are freeloading.