UFO: Afterlight has two damage types: health damage type and weapon damage type.
Health Damage[]
Health damage has three types, and is applied to Hit Point.
| Stun Damage | Available Hit Point | Temporary Damage | Permanent Damage |
- Permanent damage (black) can be cured only at base. A unit dies when it has as much permanent damage as its hit point, with no exception.
- Temporary damage (red) can be cured or repaired on the field. A few races can slowly regenerate temporary damages.
- Stun damage (grey) can be cured or repaired on the field, and will slowly recover with time.
The remaining health is green.
A unit usually fall unconscious when it has as much total damage as its hit point, i.e. when it runs out of green health.
Units trained in 
Major Toughness are exceptions.
When a unit has as much temporary and permanent damage as its hit point, i.e. when it runs out of green and grey health, further temporary damage will becomes permanent.
Healing[]
Stun damage is fully healed as soon as the mission is finished, and temporary damage is fully healed as soon as the soldier returns to base.
While at base, permanent damage recovers naturally at 0.2% per hour under normal difficulty, regardless of whether the soldier is engaged in some activities.
Staying at 
Hospital Ward will increase the healing rate to 1% per hour, or 2.1% per hour with a 
Surgery.
A seriously wounded soldier - over 75% total damage - cannot carry out combat missions until healed to 25% health. This calculation includes temporary damage.
In battles, temp and stun damage can be healed by soldiers with Medicine training using First Aid kit, using Beastmen Medikit after Beastmen soldier interrogation research, and aliens using Psionic Healing Device, with Psionic Weapon training after Psionic Healing research. The amount of healing points add straight to scientist XP after battle.
Weapon Damage[]
Different weapon damage types has different health damage ratio, stopping power, effectiveness against object, chance to break armor, and visibility.
| Stun% | Temp% | Perm% | Force | Dispersion | Armor Break | Object Damage | Visibility | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Projectile | 10% | 70% | 20% | 1.0 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 20% | 0.5 |
| Laser | 0% | 80% | 20% | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 10% | 0.5 |
| Explosion | 30% | 70% | 0% | 2.0 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 100% | 1.5 |
| Melee | 0% | 40% | 60% | 0.75 | 0.15 | 1.5 | 50% | 0.0 |
| Fire | 0% | 60% | 40% | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 25% | 3.0 |
| EMP | 70% | 15% | 15% | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.01 | 0% | 1.0 |
| Psi | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0% | 0.0 |