launching colony ships

[Gator]

Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong in my attempt to launch a colony ship? I have built three colony ships in an attempt to expand rapidly and build all three planets simultaneously.

*I start by going to the "fleet" menu, where it says "new mission/select ships"
*I go to the field to the right of "colony ship"
*a field that reads "available 3"
*then to the right of that, the field (max)
*to the right of that a field that says "0".

At that point, do I change the "0" to "1"? That takes me to a screen that reads "choose target"
I change the coordinates from my own to a new on of my choosing, Hypothetically lets say it was in the same system a few galaxies over
I adjust my speed so that I have my Deut and cargo fields in the green, (I expended most of my resources building the colony ships)
I go to the bottom of that screen and click on "continue"

Now, I see a "mission" field under which reads "colonize"
to the right of that "resources" field
under which has;

Resources
Metal max
Crystal max
Deuterium max
Capacity left
All resources

If I click max on all res, then I have a red number in the "capacity left" feild,
If I click on continue at this point, I see an ERROR ACTION IMPOSSIBLE message.
Does this mean that all I have to do is wait for more res? Or, am I totally off base and going in the complete wrong direction with this?
Please excuse my ignorance and this long ass detailed question, thanks.

[Ryurik]

You don't send resources with a colony ship!!...Basicaly what happens is..when you find a "blank" area on your Galaxy screen that you want to build a planet..your colony ship "crashes" and the debris makes your planet with a few resources left over to give you a start..same as the first planet you got. Just send your colony ship the same as a probe..pick your target and send.

[Gator]

Sorry, that info didn't help, I'm obviously a 'tard so please explain how to launch a ship to go to a planet as if I started playing this game today (in reality its been almost a week). I have never launched a probe or ship to this point.
I got the point of not sending res with the colony ship, no problem, if I knew how to launch a colony ship (or a probe, or anything else), I'll make sure NOT to send any resources with it.
Also, can I can send a colony ship to any planet of any galaxy in any system I choose thats blank?

[Gator]

OK, I had to click on the word "colonise" under the "MISSION" feild, tada it gave me mission times, arrival times and all sorts of stuff. Something so simple, yet not exactly easy to figure out by a 'tard. Thanks anyway...