Dumb question, but do "hit points" (HP) strangely INCREASE with damage in Highfleet?

[Skadar]

For example, during a combat sequence, if my ship is relatively undamaged, I might see a label of 148 HP. But if I am severely damaged, it might show me 1256 HP.

It's odd seeing damage displayed as an increasing number. Almost universally, games record damage by starting with a high number and subtracting until they reach ZERO, when your vehicle/avatar becomes disabled or is destroyed.

When I re-try combat sequences in Highfleet, I keep second guessing myself as to whether I did better or worse than previously because these HP counts seem backwards to every other game I've played.

[CHOO CHOO]

In Soviet Russia, Hit Point loses YOU!

[cyberman]

Hit points, damage dealt.
Health points, health.

[LorDC]

Lol, I played this game for 50+ hours and never noticed that there IS an HP value at all.
You can always gauge ships state by just looking at it. Its usually pretty obvious. I am also not sure if it actually matters for practical purposes anyways. If your bridge or magazines got hit it's GG anyways. And getting engine or gun destroyed has vastly different effect even if an abstract HP loss is the same.

[Rocket Witch]

'Floatie' damage numbers appearing over enemies to show damage recently dealt (not remaining HP) are very common in games – these are what you are seeing.

It is uncommon (but not unheard-of) for a game to display a single number that increases as more damage is dealt during the time it is being displayed, instead of extra numbers appearing, as is the case in HF.

Also, there is what appears to be a visual bug, where sometimes a damage number will appear next to a ship at the start of a combat/landing instance, showing its full HP total (presumably the game detects this as an instance of 'negative damage', since the ship was just generated 'from zero to full', as it were, for the scene). I guess this may be what gave you the impression that the numbers are showing health rather than damage.

[Flan]

Hp going down from a set number doesn't make sense in context of how ships are damaged and destroyed this game. Damage tallied up does though.