As a person with ASM hacking and other programming experience, trust me, building it from scratch would be much easier, even if graphics scare you.
This is part of the ASM code used by the game to display tech descriptions.
Disassembly:
$C2/57EE B7 0D LDA [$0D],y[$CC:3A0B] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVmxdizc
$C2/57F0 85 31 STA $31 [$00:0231] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVmxdizc
$C2/57F2 A9 00 00 LDA #$0000 A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVmxdizc
$C2/57F5 E2 20 SEP #$20 A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVmxdizc
$C2/57F7 A5 0F LDA $0F [$00:020F] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/57F9 85 33 STA $33 [$00:0233] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/57FB 64 30 STZ $30 [$00:0230] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/57FD A5 14 LDA $14 [$00:0214] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/57FF C9 02 CMP #$02 A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5801 D0 04 BNE $04 [$5807] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5803 A9 00 LDA #$00 A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5805 80 02 BRA $02 [$5809] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5807 A9 08 LDA #$08 A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5809 85 34 STA $34 [$00:0234] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/580B A5 14 LDA $14 [$00:0214] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/580D 10 02 BPL $02 [$5811] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/580F 64 34 STZ $34 [$00:0234] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5811 A9 04 LDA #$04 A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5813 85 15 STA $15 [$00:0215] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5815 A2 00 02 LDX #$0200 A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5818 86 3D STX $3D [$00:023D] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/581A A9 00 LDA #$00 A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/581C 85 3F STA $3F [$00:023F] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/581E 64 17 STZ $17 [$00:0217] A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5820 2B PLD A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5821 28 PLP A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
$C2/5822 6B RTL A:0002 X:0010 Y:0002 P:enVMxdizc
Scary, right?
Edit: That is of course comparing it to a high level programming language.