X-Plane 11.20b1 is the first beta that includes non-VR improvements. Full release notes are here, but a non-comprehensive short list of the most exciting additions is:

Gateway airports

Terminal Kit additions

Customizable Jetway Kit

Custom landmark pack for Sydney, Australia

Better syncing of aircraft location in multiplayer and external visuals

Improved night lighting textures in far views

Formation flying: this beta includes Jörg’s new code to improve network sync, both for external visuals and multiplayer/formation-flying. X-Plane now calculates the total latency between machines and adjusts network aircraft to compensate, with error correction. This means you see your friend flying where he is, not where he was when X-Plane sent an aircraft position update over the wire 100 ms ago.

Night lighting: X-Plane’s night lights come from the autogen, but for performance and memory reasons, X-Plane doesn’t build autogen far from the aircraft. Petr has added night lighting textures for the far view to fill in the night sky. Here’s a comparison at KSEA (looking toward KBFI) at about 10k feet.

KSEA at 10k feet 11.11 – autogen lights only 11.20 – autogen and texture lights

New Sydney landmarks:

Steam users: the beta will be up on Steam over the weekend if we don’t find any major problems.

This is going to be a relatively short beta – most of the technically risky stuff went into the VR previews. We still have a plugin bug with fuel flow to fix, and Linux performance problems to investigate. Third party authors: please try your add-ons on an 11.20 beta soon.