Boy, one could get carried away quite quickly buying scenery add-ons! Luckily I’m showing a bit of restraint but I am planning to purchase all the airports I visit regularly (as both an aviation enthusiast and a tourist). My local is MAN, and I see Macco do a half-decent scenery — however by 2023’s standards it looks a bit lacking. The ground textures to be fair look fantastic, and the infamous 23R ‘bump’ is also accurately included by the look of it. T3 also looks pretty well modelled. However T1 and particularly T2 look a bit disappointing; almost as though someone got fed up halfway through designing the place and rushed to get it finished.
There appear to be a decent amount of landside objects, such as the famous pub at the end of 23R, the RVP and the Radisson Blu, but the rest of the landside area looks to be just default satellite imagery. In other words, it looks quite sparse.
All this said, Macco apparently committed to keeping the scenery fresh and updated, and I’ve not seen any recent reviews — so my question is, is it any different now to how it looked a couple of years ago? At under £15 it’s not unreasonably priced, but I’d like to hear your thoughts if you own it.
There’s a free one at flightsim.to and lots of additional models of the surrounding areas and central Manchester. Might be worth a look and if you don’t like it you can always delete it and it’s cost you nothing.
Karl,
as far as I can see, and someone correct me if I’m wrong, Macco hasn’t updated MAN for over a year or even longer. They did promise regular updates, but those never came and they also never addressed reported bugs. So last time I checked one of the runways still had incorrect markings, and the VOR station is still all flat when they promised to include it immediately after initial release. Not a pretty sight when landing on 23.
I just don’t think it’s still being developed, if it had been, then we’d have seen a decent update by now? Heck I’m not even sure the developer is still active. I hope so, talent is there clearly, but Manchester has been neglected for a long long time.
Smug I think you’re spot on with what you say. I own both EGCC and EGBB and I purchased them shortly after release. There have been none of the promised updates and no bug fixes. I certainly hope it’s not abandonware because as you said there is someone with talent there.
Yes if only Pyreegue would take these on that would be brilliant. Still anxiously waiting on EGNX though.
Very exciting news for us; we have been approved by Manchester Airport to do a full airport visit including aprons, tower and other restricted areas.
We are planning on doing the survey by the end of this year and will be taking a ridiculous amount of images and videos of the airport.
The goal for this trip is for us to have reference imagery of absolutely everything at the airport and therefore will be doing a BIG update on Manchester.
This big update will take some time as we will be re-doing almost every aspect of the airport. We will also know exactly what is within the new pier remote stands, and better textures/accuracy of models
EGCC has a weird exclusion issue where vehicles are crossing the runway and not using the tunnels; we are investigating and will be updating once we are happy with SU11. We will push the update soon after.
EGBB has a couple of buildings missing and a weird terrain issue next to a retaining wall pathway by the main entrance, both of which will be added/fixed in due course
MMUN has had a reported issue of AI aircraft not vacating the runway and disappearing at the end. We are investigating and will update in due course.
All 3 airports will receive a full GSX and aircraft parking update, meaning the right aircraft will park up at the right gates. This will be shipped with the updates above.
VDGS will be implemented at EGCC and EGBB. We are still in debates as to use a custom 3rd party which is costly and would end up passing on the cost to our community or to rely on GSX (which would mean those without GSX will not have it). It is yet to be decided.
As with all updates, the marketplace will receive it later as Microsoft have to test and approve it.
I’ve got both their Birmingham and Manchester sceneries and they’re decent enough, but both of them have their fair share of issues, as others have noted. And it’s anyone’s guess if and when they’ll be updated or fixed. Apart from some vague promises it doesn’t feel like they’re in any hurry to release anything, sometimes I wonder if the lights are still on at Maccosim at all, if you know what I mean.
So with that in mind, I would say, no, don’t buy it, unless you’re desperate for something that’s better than the default. I’d wait till they finally release something, or someone else decides to pick these airports up and do a better job.
I flew into Macco’s EGCC last night. It’s fine as an exterior model airport. All in all better than default, but mosty an exterior model and looks quite dated by today’s airport add on standards. (interiors, people, textures, terrain etc.)
The benchmarks now are airports like-
Ini’s KLAX, EGGL(V3)
Pyreegue’s EGPF, EGPH, EGAA
NZA Simulation’s NZCH
Drzewiecki design : All
Of course these all come at a harware resource premium, but Ini’s now have toggles for users to tweak performance. Seems like it’s the way to go these days. If you can get EGCC on sale it’s probably still worth a purchase.
Thank you, all. I think I will wait. I did look on Marketplace last night and, at least with Xbox, we’re currently at version 2.1.6, which was released 1st Jan 2023. As long as they’re sincere about this supposed ‘big update’, it might be worth holding out to see if it comes to pass.
I have NZA’s Christchurch and it really illustrates just what can be done in 2023. I think Macco’s MAN was one of the first third-party airports back when MSFS was released?
Interesting you mention Drzewiecki design as I was looking at his NRT and it looks a bit below what’s possible with the current generation of detailed sceneries (such as those from NZA, Flightbeam, Pilot Plus, Pyreegue, Ini).
Narita is great though. It is older, but is still a fantastic airport. Honestly worth the purchase. Most of Drzewiecki’s airports are amazing works of art assuming you have the hardware to run them. KEWR is great too but it was a bit resource ehavy, but now has some performance control options (on pc installs anyway).
Yes, they even included the famous hump on 23R, can easily catch you out on a landing lol. Yes it’s a little dated and the optimisation could be better as it was made just post SU5 so there are some weird LOD issues. My main gripe is there are no runway tax links for the AI to follow so they end up taxiing all the way to the end before taxiing off. I paid £9.99 when it first came out and I’ve more than had my money’s worth as it’s my local.
The Marketplace is doing better than Macco Sim’s own website. I bought it direct from them and their website has v 2.1.5 as the latest version, and this was released back in November 2022!
Sorry, you are right, I was looking at the wrong file. 2.1.5 was released in late September 2021, no updates on the Maccosim website since then but it still works fine.
The Thomas Cook hangar correction mod also helps.
Wont be able to get that, i’m on Xbox. I’ve got Macco simulations Manchester its very good but as someone said (sorry) the scenery looks a bit sparse in areas and it could do a bit of beefing up.
On Xbox too. I’m an Xbox simmer myself. Adds the full cities of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle, plus Blackpool. Also adds various landmarks and things like power stations.
