A method for wireless communication, comprising: i) buffering a first set of coded bits of a first control message having a plurality of fields; ii) buffering a second set of coded bits of a second control message having the plurality of fields, wherein the first set of coded bits are associated with a first transmission and the second set of coded bits are associated with a second transmission that is, at least in part, a retransmission of the first transmission; the method further comprising one of the following: iiia) identifying a set of bits that differ between the first control message and the second control message, deriving, from the set of bits that differ between the first control message and the second control message, a number of cyclic redundancy check, CRC, bits that differ for the first control message and the second control message, and identifying, based at least in part on the number of CRC bits that differ for the first control message and the second control message, a subset of coded bits that differ between the first set of coded bits and the second set of coded bits, or iiib) identifying, within the plurality of fields, at least one field having a set of bits that change deterministically from the first control message to the second control message, whereby the change of the transmitted first control message to the retransmitted second control message is performed according to a deterministic way; deriving, from the set of bits that change deterministically from the first control message to the second control message, a subset of coded bits; and and the method further comprising: iv) modifying the subset of coded bits in at least one of the first set of coded bits or the second set of coded bits, to place the subset of coded bits in a same state in the first set of coded bits and the second set of coded bits; soft combining at least a first subset of the first set of coded bits and a second subset of the second set of coded bits in a combined set of coded bits, wherein the first subset is associated with the first control message and the second subset is associated with the second control message; and v) decoding the first control message or the second control message based at least in part on the combined set of coded bits. i) buffering a first set of coded bits of a first control message having a plurality of fields; ii) buffering a second set of coded bits of a second control message having the plurality of fields, wherein the first set of coded bits are associated with a first transmission and the second set of coded bits are associated with a second transmission that is, at least in part, a retransmission of the first transmission; iiia) identifying a set of bits that differ between the first control message and the second control message, deriving, from the set of bits that differ between the first control message and the second control message, a number of cyclic redundancy check, CRC, bits that differ for the first control message and the second control message, and identifying, based at least in part on the number of CRC bits that differ for the first control message and the second control message, a subset of coded bits that differ between the first set of coded bits and the second set of coded bits, or iiib) identifying, within the plurality of fields, at least one field having a set of bits that change deterministically from the first control message to the second control message, whereby the change of the transmitted first control message to the retransmitted second control message is performed according to a deterministic way; deriving, from the set of bits that change deterministically from the first control message to the second control message, a subset of coded bits; and iv) modifying the subset of coded bits in at least one of the first set of coded bits or the second set of coded bits, to place the subset of coded bits in a same state in the first set of coded bits and the second set of coded bits; soft combining at least a first subset of the first set of coded bits and a second subset of the second set of coded bits in a combined set of coded bits, wherein the first subset is associated with the first control message and the second subset is associated with the second control message; and v) decoding the first control message or the second control message based at least in part on the combined set of coded bits.