bitproto VS netcode.io

I had a similar use case for embedded microcontroller work. Unfortunately, the only one that I found that lets you have bit-level control is bitproto. The problem with all these protocol formats is that they require generated sources to be included in your project at compile time.

yojimbo/ netcode/ reliable, all developped by Glenn Fidler, author of GafferOnGames

Man-in-the-middling the netcode. From what I can tell, this would work ... but the packets are encrypted. It appears the netcode is largely based on this library, that they sponsor. There appear to be some differences from the "standard" but there are too many similarities to not have a common ancestor. I got pretty far on this, just to at least verify there was encryption. Even if it is not encrypted, it appears to be a custom protocol.

I use netcode.io - if you have read gafferongames posts, this is made by the guy.

You may not be there yet with your developer skills but if you are curious you can have a look at the netcode source code. I'm not sure if they're still using it since the switch to Lumberyard and Amazon Services but it's a really good and strong codebase: https://github.com/networkprotocol/netcode

I found that there is a relatively new protocol called netcode.io that provides UDP-like connection between client-server.

If you want to learn more about networking for game in C++, Glenn Fiedler has great articles from the basics to advanced topics: https://www.gafferongames.com/ He also created a library for client-server networking: https://github.com/networkprotocol/netcode (He has a big name in networking, totally recommend reading his articles if you want to learn more about networking)