I realize this is probably a stupid question, but I'm a total noob the the SE series, and have started my first game (starting with IV). I'm liking it so far, and can see myself loving it once I learn it a little better.

That said, I've finished the tutorial, and played for a couple of hours past that. I'm now trying to explore and colonize other planets in other solar systems. I've sent colony ships and colonized planets, but when I go into the construction queue for those new planets and select facilities to construct, the "Time" for all says "Never". I assume this means that construction cannot/will not begin and so the construction will never complete.

What do I need to do in order for the construction to begin? Maybe bring some supplies from my home system/planets? Build certain units/ships first?

Any help/suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Well, my guess is that you don't have enough resources to build the facilities. Check the Empire Status (crown symbol), and look at the Resources Generated / Construction Queue usage entries in the "Construcion Queues" window (top left), also the Cost entry for the facilities you want to build in the Item Details window (underneath the Construction Queue of the planets).
Make also sure to check the number of people on the planets. Do you load population onto the colonizers before you send them off? If not, you could build freighters to increase the population on your new colonies.

If you have questions regarding Space Empires games, you may also visit the forum at spaceempires.net (http://home.spaceempires.net/forums.html), where you find a very active and helpful community and all kinds of information and mods for all Space Empires games.

It's most probably because you forgot to send people with your colony ships. If it was that you didn't have resources enough to build as Greywolf1 suggested you would get a message during next turn that there was a lack of resources so your queue on planet X couldn't build anything and it would not say "Never" on the construction screen.

Here's a tip. Don't forget to build a Starport in every system. ;)

Edit: In fact I think the only reason I have run across why the build time say "Never" is if the planet for some reason doesn't have a population anymore. Happens from time to time because of some random events and if I forget to bring people when colonizing. Yes it's a common mistake. :)

Thank you both for the replies!

From what you've said, I see now that my problem is that the colony has no population. Again, I know I'm ignorant, but how do you add people (population) to colony ships? I'm not seeing that option/button anywhere.

Also, I'm trying to register at the Spaceempires.net forums mentioned above, but keep getting the "Name a stock race/shipset from SE4 or SE5:" question wrong, even though I've looked up all shipsets and tried at least a dozen different ones. Can anyone tell me what answer they're looking for?

First of all, you can always add more population, with the help of freighters - nothing is lost, except time, if you colonize without population initially.
The loading process is the same for both colony ships and freighters: Select the ship. Then press the "Load Cargo" button (it's near the "Game Date" literal in the middle of the top status bar, a cube with a yellow up arrow). Now you must select the target for the Load order (the source of the people, with other words), i.e. the planet where your ship is. Finally, you must select "Cargo Type" (population), that's all. As a reasult, you see a little yellow man next to the ship entry in the window on the right. Upon arrival, you use the Drop Cargo button to send the people to the colony. That's all - don't forget to select the ship first (otherwise the Load and Drop Cargo buttons will not be selectable).
Please keep in mind that the population you are sending to colonies is not available on the source planet anymore. It fills up again over time, but construction there may suffer initially, if you take away too many.

I'm not familiar with the registration process at spaceempires.net (did it only once many years ago). What exactly happens when you enter any of the SE4 races, like Krill, Drushocka, ...?

Click your colony ship, click the Colonize button to the left on the second row from the top on the ship commands rows and then click the planet you want to colonize. If there is enough population on the planet your colony ship is orbiting it will automatically load population. That's the simplest way to colonize I know of.

Greywolf1 have already explained how to transport population. :)

A good way to colonize a uncontested system is to first colonize a "green dot" planet, one with breathable atmosphere, make it the biggest, preferable with a good environment and while you're colonizing the other planets move a size-able portion of your population to it. When your population there is growing nicely move population from it to other planets in the system. Remember population growth is in percent so when moving population from somewhere to another place don't move too many or you're crippling your population growth. Don't forget to have a supply building there for your population transport ship.
Or you can just do as I when I'm feeling lazy and only move population to planets with a breathable atmosphere and let the others fill up by themselves. :P

I actually ran into this problem two days ago. Either my colonists died or something, but planet was empty. What I did was fill up transport from my MAIN planet(this is kind of important) and dropped them off on that colony with no population. Stuff started getting built, they started having kids, planet happiness rose. Reason for not picking people from other colonies is their population size, plus rate at which they replenish. P.S. I dont own Space Empires 4 Deluxe on GOG, sadly.