Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described that allow for a first user equipment (UE) to forward a transmission from a second UE to a base station. The forwarding techniques may include the first UE performing a decoding procedure on a message received from the second UE via a sidelink communications link. Based on the results of the decoding procedure, the first UE may select an amplify and forward (AF), decode and forward (DF), or a combination thereof to forward the message from the second UE to the base station. The base station may receive the forward messages and, in some cases, a message directly from the second UE, and may determine decoding weights to use to jointly decode the two messages received at the base station.