Ars Metallica has been in my mod list forever, but after starting to use Skyre I stopped using AM as they both cover the same things, albeit a bit differently. The thing is that I miss AM and wonder how they work together? Will AM simply take over the Skyre features (minus the perk of course) if I load it later - or will it be messed up somehow? There is a patch for them, but it is almost a year old and AM has been updated since then so I'm a bit wary of using it. In short, is anyone here using both and can give some recommendations regarding this?

I've done it. I don't recall if I had a compatability patch or not.

But you may want to consider CCOR (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49791/?) - there is an explicit patch for that and SkyRe (http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/48629/?).

Thanks. The reason I'm not using CCOR is that it removes the animation when using the tanning rack. A little thing but I miss it when it's gone. Anyway, I'll try with AM loading last and see how it goes.

Since SkyRe is modular, perhaps you can only select the modules you want and sprinkle them in with AM.

Not possible as the smithing changes are in SkyRe_Main.esp.