Why does shardplate have eyeslits?

[Lesser spren]

It's easily shardplate's biggest weakness.

[StanLemon]

2 hours ago, Lesser spren said:

It's easily shardplate's biggest weakness.

Two reasons, they are still useful for proper vision because while the inside of the helmet is translucent it isn't transparent. Second, it functions as a breathing hole. A possible third reason is expectations. If a Surgebinder is familiar with armor having eyeslits in general, it could be an unconscious formation they make in their Plate.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

An increadibly small weakness, like 10mm or less.

Kaladin never should have fit a spearpoint in there.

While spear tip designs varied, they were often pretty flat outside of the base. I'd imagine that Roshar weapon design would be big on this to take advantage of the eye slit and small cracks that can form from damage when a Plate wearer got immobilized like how the Singers tried doing to Jasnah in RoW

[Frustration]

An increadibly small weakness, like 10mm or less.

Kaladin never should have fit a spearpoint in there.

[+Oltux72]

16 hours ago, Frustration said:

An increadibly small weakness, like 10mm or less.

Kaladin never should have fit a spearpoint in there.

10 mm is a gigantic spearpoint. In fact ridiculously huge. A blade in terms of physics is to concentrate force on a small area. It needs to be thin.

[Frustration]

5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

10 mm is a gigantic spearpoint. In fact ridiculously huge. A blade in terms of physics is to concentrate force on a small area. It needs to be thin.

spear point, yes, the entire spearhead, no. You need some mass to it to keep it from breaking.

[Chinkoln]

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

spear point, yes, the entire spearhead, no. You need some mass to it to keep it from breaking.

Depends on the substance it is made of, that is extremely important in this situation/context.