Hey guys, I got RWR about 4 days ago, and I have fallen in love. I did see that there were open suggestions to more side missions, and I thought I'd give my 2 cents.

Defector extraction missions- Same idea as POW extraction, but for enemy soldiers who want to defect. Somewhere a little behind the front, there are 3-4 defecting enemy soldiers, but you need to rendezvous with them and bring them back to armory for RP reward. Also not sure how the bot numbers work in the game, but maybe this could also cause a -4 AI for the enemies and +4 AI for allies. A subtle but interesting way to shift battles in your favor.

Supply convoys- Pretty straightforward. Have 2-4 Cargo/Transport trucks with maybe 1 Humvee and 1 Jeep...attack enemy convoys for RP, defend allied ones for RP. My hope is maybe some of these mobile side missions could help use parts of the map that are used less, aka farther from the cap zones. Regardless, you could have convoy routes be random and really give a nice little change of pace to the battle. Perhaps the result of the mission would greatly speed up/slow down how quickly your army takes the map.

Civilian rescue- This one may be a little more difficult since there isn't a "civilian" faction, but same idea as POW and defector extraction. This could be focused more in urban areas around firefights, as the reasoning would be to evacuate innocents from the fighting. Think Counter-strike hostage rescue.

Some form of AI bounty system for players. When I say this, what I mean is what if the top 5-10 ranking players on the server/map are tagged as priority targets for the AI to capture? The AI will then not always try to kill these soldiers, but rather use stun grenades and capture them, much like the POW idea above. Said players could be taken to a "prison" where they could potentially escape, but would be difficult solely because they would be unarmed and guarded. Perhaps they could escape with some intel to bring back to the armory for RP, making an incentive to "complete" the prisoner mission. My idea behind this would be to avoid sticking a player in a locked room and forcing them to wait to be freed, because let's face it, some people aren't into that stuff. Perhaps if allies were helping to break them out, it could be significantly easier, but ultimately if the player didnt feel like being a prisoner, they could hop a fence and either escape or get shot trying, thus respawning back in the battle. My hope is maybe more teamwork would develop out of this, as higher ranks have the radios and assuming more RP to act upon. You could even get real complicated and incorporate prisoner transport into the convoy idea. But that might be a lot to think about.

On coastal/island maps, perhaps a small dock or port with a static radio to call in patrol boats or rubber boats of troops. Maybe if controlled, also gives access to one Naval barrage artillery strike (think mortar<artillery<naval barrage)

Transplant the above idea to airports for maps with landing strips. Make it a larger paradrop than 8, and perhaps strategic bomber support ( same idea as naval barrage, but would allow the idea that the plane is high altitude and off camera, thus no need to get fussy with planes in game.)

I realize some of these sound similar but those are just a few off the top of my head. I love the concept of this game, and I believe that the core of RWR leaves a lot of room to expand and refine.

I'm sure someone's already said this too, but have you considered making separate models for soldiers depending on what their primary weapon is? I have no issues at all with the game aesthetic, but maybe some variety might make it look a little more purdy to others. Plus what's wrong with different looking little men to kill each other with?

So many possibilities! To be honest, I've been thinking a lot about two of my favorite games from my teenage years, Mercenaries and Mercenaries 2. Mainly I've been thinking about those side-missions and I think that stuff along those lines could fit beautifully into RWR.

P.S. What if there was a neutral gun battery on the map? Could offer indirect fire mortar one shot every X seconds but it would be somewhere highly exposed and hard to hold. Could make for more interesting strategies in taking points depending on its placement.