right, so recently ive been playing the Thrawn's Revenge mod, and having played it, i do have some comments. with regards to heroes, i believe that permadeath should be on, but with a twist. in the TR mod, they have it so Isard has Lusankya as her flagship, and sometimes, even on easy, she would herself attack me, and in the TR mod, an Executor-class Star Dreadnought is far less powerful than here in PR, but because she was still a powerful opponant, it took a few times to finally take her down. I believe, if possible, that depending on what a hero is flying, they should be able to respawn a few times.
a quick example. its not uncommon for a Pilot to have to abandon a stricken fighter, and then to get a replacement at the first opportunity, so in theory, a hero that flies fighters/bombers could have an infinite number of respawns. but a commander of a Capital ship would likely not be as quick to receive a replacement ship.
numerical time.
a fighter/bomber pilot would get say, 10 respawns.
Transport/Shuttle pilots would get 6-8
Freighter/Corvette ranked heroes would get 4-6 respawns
Frigate/Cruisers would get 2-4 respawns
Star Destroyer/Star Cruisers would get 1-3 respawns
a Star Battlecrusier/Star Dreadnought hero would only get one respawn, but with the cases of anyone flying an Executor, no respawns
its realistic, as there were several examples of a hero in the books having to change craft because of the destruction or otherwise incapacatation of their previous craft, it allows for some forgiveness, while still being a harsh lesson.
to spice it up a bit, ive got another few ideas. if they are a hero who goes to larger craft, i.e wedge from a fighter pilot, to a squad leader to the command of a frigate, if that frigate were to be destroyed, you could have it so that rebuilding the hero would be more expensive, or you could send him back to his being in a fighter. and you could also have it so that you wouldnt be able to rebuild him for a couple of weeks (in universe explanation: bacta tank, rehabilitation, debriefing, bureaucratic procedures, etc).
this of course assumes this is at all possible.
as an aside, i do have an idea for a hero ability. Local spying. if a hero is in a system, every planet within say, the radius of 1 of the furthest destinations achievable in one jump, or every planet within a 1 jump radius.
canon because of Talon Karade having a vast network of spies, as well as the Bothan Spynet probably having permeated organizations from the local tap-caf up to a planetary governor's office, and likely having subsidiary control stations not on Bothwui to take care of local data