If you're enjoying the online racing portion of Skylanders Imaginators on your Xbox One or PlayStation 4, this document will help you understand the various technical issues that can arise along with how to get the best online racing experience

Skylanders Imaginators Network Status Screen

If you’re having issues either connecting to an online race or while playing inside one, your first stop should be the in-game network status screen. To reach the network status screen simply call up the in-game menu and scroll down to Network Status.

Once you select Network Status, you’ll be taken to the network status screen:

The following chart has a brief explanation of what each of these issues refers to along with what a particular color status means. A more in-depth explanation of these items follows the chart along with links where you can get more information on these issues.

Network Issues

Link: Link is your console’s physical connection to the Internet. Your connection may be through your home’s Wi-Fi connection or through an actual physical cable connected to your home’s Internet router. If this bubble is red, check your system’s Wi-Fi connection or Internet cable.

NAT: “NAT” stands for “Network Address Translation.” This is a security protocol that can be altered by the user to regulate the freedom with which your router will connect your device to other devices on the Internet. Your NAT can be set to three different security levels – Open, Moderate, or Strict on Microsoft devices or Type 1, Type 2, or Type 3 for Sony devices.

Most people keep their NAT to “Open” or “Type 1” as this allows the most freedom in connecting to other devices across the Internet, gives the fastest data transfer speeds and provides the best connections. In order to function properly, Skylanders SuperChargers needs to have an Open or Type 1 environment. If your bubble is showing as yellow (Moderate/Type 2) or Red (Strict/Type 3), you’ll need to adjust your NAT settings.

Account: This bubble lets you know whether the online account for your console is active. In order to race online in Skylanders SuperChargers, your console must be signed into an active Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, or Nintendo Network account. If this bubble is red, exit the game, sign into your account and restart the game.

Servers: This bubble tells you the status of the Skylanders SuperChargers’ online servers operated by Activision. If this bubble is red, it means there’s a problem connecting to the Activision servers. The Activision Support site will usually issue some sort of alert if this happens containing information on the nature of the problem along with an estimate of how long the servers will be down.

Bandwidth: This bubble measures how quickly your network is transmitting data back and forth between your console and Skylanders SuperChargers’ online servers. For optimal gameplay, you’ll need a data transfer speed of 768 kilobytes per second (kbps) or greater. Speeds below that may cause delayed transmissions and latency (lag) and speed below 64kbps will render online racing impossible and show as a red bubble.