Been looking and cant find any ruling as to whether the splash damage of an alchemist's bomb's do the specified splash damage. if a regular bomb does fire slash, does that mean an acid bomb does acid splash and a concussive does sound splash?
The reason for me asking is the line in all the discoveries "Creatures that take a direct hit from a ... bomb"
Splash damage from an alchemist bomb is always equal to the bomb’s minimum damage (so if the bomb would deal 2d6+4 points of fire damage on a direct hit, its splash damage would be 6 points of fire damage).
Frost bomb*: When the alchemist creates a bomb, he can choose to have it inflict cold damage. Creatures that take a direct hit from a frost bomb are staggered on their next turn unless they succeed on a Fortitude save.
This seems seems pretty straight forward to me. Frost bombs can do cold damage (instead of fire damage). There's absolutely nothing to suggest that the splash wouldn't also be cold damage (instead of fire damage.)
The line that begins "Creatures that take a direct hit..." refers only to the additional effect. Creatures that do not take a direct hit are not subject to this additional effect. The other alternate damage discoveries have nearly identical format.