Techniques are provided for reference signal transmissions and transmit power ratio determination in non-orthogonal transmissions. A traffic-to-pilot power ratio (TPR) may be determined for a base layer for a non-orthogonal channel and another TPR may be determined for an enhancement layer for the non-orthogonal channel. Reference signal transmissions may be transmitted by a base station at a reference signal transmission power, and a user equipment (UE) may estimate channel quality for the base layer or the enhancement layer based at least in part on an energy level of the received reference signal and one or more of the first TPR or the second TPR. A base station may transmit TPR signaling that may indicate one or more TPR values for one or both of the base layer or enhancement layer.